Kentucky Downs

So, I’ve had trouble deciding whether or not I should blog about my weekend, but decided what the heck since I generally know who’s reading this and don’t really mind if you know the details of my life. I spent the weekend in Kentucky. With a boy (gasp!). Yes, I met a boy a few months ago…it is nothing serious, at all. And right now, I don’t really expect it to turn serious. I met him on the street a few blocks from my apartment one Friday night on my way home (literally, on the street…sounds just like me, right?). He’s a Kentucky boy involved in all aspects of horse racing….owns ‘em, sells ‘em, breeds ‘em, races ‘em, bets on ‘em, and also advises other people on buying ‘em and bettin' on ‘em. He lives in Louisville and I had not seen him since the weekend I met him in June, but we’ve talked on the phone quite a bit and he offered to fly me down on Saturday morning to spend the day at some races with him.

The name of the meet we went to is Kentucky Downs and it's held in Franklin, KY, right on the KY/TN border. I actually flew into Nashville and he picked me up there and we went straight to the track and spent the entire day there. It was fun and I learned some more about reading the racing forms to determine which horses to bet on. He generally placed the bets for me and I didn’t keep track of how much I (or really he) was winning/losing, but I’m pretty sure I came out pretty far into the losing end of things. He did good though, so I’m sure his winnings covered my losings. He’s a pretty smart better and does all these complicated bets and hedges his bets against one another, ensuring wins. He chose my bets for me some of the time, but we were really trying to get me to where I can learn how to bet on my own…very, very simple bets for now. He brought a picnic lunch for us…chicken salad and croissants, fruit, wine, etc…. It was nice and fun. This was a very casual horse race…more like the county fair, as he put it. Very different from most of the races he goes to.

Saturday night, we just went to a casual steak place for dinner…it was good, but nothing fancy. He swam a bit...I didn't bring my swimsuit, but sat out by the pool- the weather was perfect! Sunday morning, we went to breakfast at a Cracker Barrel across the street, which was quite delicious. Then, we headed back over to the race track. There were no races at that track on Sunday, but there were some other big races at Belmont (the track here on Long Island), so we were able to watch those on TV and bet on them there. It was quite a set-up with tons of TV’s televising different races across the US and several tellers where you could place bets. Horse racing is a big deal in Kentucky. We were only there a couple of hours before we headed back to the airport for my flight home. A quick, random weekend centered around horse racing, but it was fun!