Early morning at the racecourse

It wasn't really early in terms of a normal racecourse day, but somehow it's harder to get up at 6:30am on a Saturday than it is during the week.

We went to the racecourse to look at a prospective new horse and watch it in a gallop.  It's still early days into its training so you only get an indication of performance.

It raced another horse down the straight.  But I wouldn't be surprised if it was allowed to win because we were watching.

Having a shower after training.

A poor day at the races

Another day, another loss.

Today we went to the races in Bega to see how our latest racehorse, Hot Eyed Glare, would perform.  Our other horse, Diamond Jay, is having a break at the moment.

Unfortunately the horse didn't run well as the jockey worked the horse too hard at the start of the race rather that letting him settle has he was directed by the trainer.  So he came well back in the field.  I didn't get a picture of him crossing the line because I can only take a finite number of frames at high speed and I ran out of them before he crossed.

So I spent the rest of the day trying to capture a good picture of the horses as they came down the straight.  It was a lot harder than I expected, especially when the cloud came in and reduced the light.  I had to set the speed to about 1/1250 sec or 1/1600 sec to avoid any motion blur.

It's still a bit hit-and-miss because you don't get time to frame the shot as they cross at high speed and it seems that most of the time you just capture a mass of heads, legs and bits of jockey.  I also noticed that I had a tendency to overly-concentrate to the horses' heads and jockeys so clipped off their feet.

A win at Moruya

We went to the races at Moruya (on the NSW South Coast) the other day.  We decided to make it an all-day trip because Moruya is about 2 1/2 hours away.

We had Kevin Sweeney riding him, which was good; we have a lot of faith in him.  We don't have to give him riding instructions because we can leave it to him to find his way between or around the opposition, and he knows better than us how the other jockeys are likely to perform on the day.

Diamond Jay was last for most of the race, and then when they reached the straight, she just powered past the opposition.  It always makes the trip home more enjoyable with a trophy in your hand.

The downside of a win is the amount of time Karyn likes to spend celebrating in the bar afterwards.

Everyone else had left until it was just us, the bartender, and the police wondering why there were still people at the track.

A poor way to end a day

Today wasn't as good as we hoped it would be. We took a trip to Bega.

Why go to a little hamlet on the far South Coast of NSW? Because of its racecourse. Our horse was running there, so we felt obliged to make the 3 hour trip. That's 3 hours each way. In a car for 6 hours. Locked in car with my mother-in-law. But of course I'm only joking, she's not too bad.

We had to leave at around 8am so that we could get there early enough to get a table in the Members area. So I had to get up at around 6:30 so I could spend half an hour on the treadmill first.

We picked up Penny, and after about 2 hours we stopped for coffee at Maccas in Cooma, where it was foggy and the temperature was a pleasant 6 degrees. By the time we got down to sea-level, the temperature had climbed to a mild 14 degrees and the sun was out.

Karyn went to say hello to Diamond Jay, and got bitten again. It happens every time. I guess one day she'll learn to stay away from the part with teeth.

It was a great race meeting at the Sapphire Coast track. Unfortuntely we came 6th. The jockey blamed the horse for not performing, but we prefer to blame him. So no trophy this time.

To make the day worse, Karyn put on a trifecta bet (picking first, second, and third) but the girl at the TAB put it on wrong. When Karyn realised this, she broke the cardinal rule of betting, and had the bet changed. If she'd left it alone, we'd have walked away with a 490:1 payout. But she broke the rule of never changing a mistaken bet, so we walked away with nothing.

So, back in the car for another 3 hour drive. With the mother-in-law next to me all the way. I had to drive, because the girls had consumed at least a bottle each.

By the time we reached Cooma we felt like a nice steak dinner, so we stopped off at the local RSL, and as luck would have it, the restaurant didn't open for another half an hour. We didn't feel like waiting, so back to McDonalds we went.

The girls pigged out on fat-burgers, while I had a wrap from their healthy-choice menu. Strange, but this menu has shrinked to almost nothing these days.

On the way back to the car, Fay tripped over and hurt herself. I'm sure the bottle of wine had nothing to do with it. She already had an injured ankle, so now she has an injured wrist and hip go with it. When we got home she realised the disadvange of our split-level home: stairs. It took ages for her to get upstairs and into bed.

Boy am I not looking forward to the morning when she tries to get up and finds out that her muscles have locked-up. Maybe I can go out somewhere before she wakes up.

I got into the spa for a relaxing float-around. And, of course, it started to rain. You know, I find it hard to relax in the spa when it's raining on my head.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.