Emerald Downs

Gotta love the horse races.

Dawn was talking about this last week at The Hideout so I got excited about it and went with her today to try my hand at the tracks (I tried but failed to convince anyone else to go though… their loss!).

I came out strong, winning $9.50 on my first race (off a $2 bet for Maximum Buzz) and then $5 more off my second race (also a $2 Exacta Box bet). From there, though, Fortuna looked the other way and I slowly returned all proceeds to the booker (plus a couple extra bucks for beer, popcorn, and a hotdog). In the end, I was still $1 ahead, which is enough to win some games of Jeopardy.

Almost more entertaining than the horses was the enormous crowd of elderly ladies in red hats and purple outfits. Upon investigation, they told us that they were part of an international coalition of 50 year old plus women who “did fun things together” called the Red Hat Society. We met the local “queen mother” and it was quite delightful. They were very friendly… maybe TOO friendly. Later in the day we witnessed a red hat lady fashion show, and a raffle that gave away 5 $100 gift certificates to the on-site red hat lady store (where you could buy red and purple ANYTHINGS).

Some obscure television station was there recording the races, and the camera man liked us and claims that we had a few moments of camera time while we chomped on popcorn and gawked at the red hat ladies.

I remarked several times that Emerald Downs seemed like another world. A world of Simpson clouds, red hat ladies, horses, bugle players, money coming from nowhere, and stressful anticipation for your horse. It was a nice little vacation in Auburn.

I love horseracing.

Oh I love the smell of horse sweat in the morning! You can read my full review of Emerald Downs at epinions.com by following the link below.

http://www.epinions.com/content_108239818372

but it was still fun. And everybody else I went with won at least once. I’ll be back for crazy hat day, mascot races, and running the Longacre Mile track.