Gold Cup

Saturday May 1 was not only a big day for Kentucky... Congrats to Calvin Borel and Super Saver by the way. But I'm not here to talk about the Kentucky Derby today even though it is my favorite horse race ever. No today I want to touch on Virginia Gold Cup world famous steeplechase race and the 50,000 other folks who thought it would be a good idea to attend.

Let me start with the buses... oh the buses. They line up and go on an on. There were probably 100 buses there. Bringing 50-60 people to the races. Not to mention all of those who drove their own cars.


We were stationed in a tent on the north end of the field. Here is a view from our left down our section of the rail. People, people and yet more people. All standing around enjoying food and drink. Some a little too much.


This is the view to our right looking out over the tailgating section and in the distance the VIP/members only section. Yet again people, people and more people.


Did I mention the Don's Johns there were LOTS of them there. Some of the tented areas had a John right inside their little fenced area with all the food and drink. Yeah I thought that was kind of gross myself but who am I to judge

But that's not what we really came for. We knew there would be lots of people there and since it was in a field in the middle of nowhere you pretty much had to assume there would lots of Don's Johns. We were right!

What we really came for was the racing.


Being right on the rail was nice once the racing started.


The horses flew by in a blur.


All was going well on the first time around. The horses were moving gracefully everyone was clearing the jumps and they were clipping right along.


On the second round however things went bad. There was an accident on the other side of the field from us, about all we could see was that he fell and didn't get up and they sent the ambulance out. The race of course kept going and as they approached the jump near us this occurred...


First one horse and then...



A second went down. Fortunately no one on our end of the field was hurt but it is still a bit of a heart stopping experience to see. I haven't heard how the jockey from the first accident is doing but hopefully it wasn't too bad.

All in all it was a grand experience that I probably wouldn't pay to attend myself. But I was grateful for the invite, the new people that we meet, the good food, the great company, the beautiful horses, the colorful jockeys and the Don's Johns.