A Horse of Course!

We brought Kinley a horse from Kentucky. Lucky for Jill and Eric, it was stuffed. Unlucky for them, a 13-month-old needs help zipping and unzipping her horse into its handy carrying case. (Just remember how many Barbie dolls I dressed and undressed for a certain someone, once upon a time.)

The stuffed horse was practically the only horse we did see at Keeneland Race Track at Lexington, Kentucky. We got up before dawn in Morehead to make the hour-long drive to Lexington. Last fall, my parents watched a morning workout at the race track while traveling back with a tour group that attended the K-State & West Virginia football game. Of course, that was in October, not January, but Keeneland's website proclaimed that mornings were the best time of day at the racetrack because that's when the horses workout. This was the scene we got instead.

The website needs an asterisk. Horses don't work out when the temperature is 16 degrees. Duly noted by this Kansas farm couple who were admitted into the stadium by a kind guard.

We saw the finish line - just no horses to run past it. We did eat breakfast at what the website calls one of Lexington's best-kept dining secrets, the Track Kitchen. I'm not sure I'd go that far. Randy compared it to eating breakfast in town with his farming buddies. But, instead of talking about rain (or lack thereof), the locals were talking about the cold. We also shared the tables with some of Keeneland's workers, who came in for a hot breakfast on a very cold morning.

Down the road on a neighboring farm, we finally did see some horses and their bundled-up riders.

Honestly, we couldn't blame Keeneland for keeping the horses inside on such a frigid morning.

 

We don't think these riders were jockeys, since they seemed normal sized. The only jockeys we saw were these statues near the stadium.

I had to take a picture of this one: Even though it wasn't representing Morehead State, it sure looked like it could have.

Since we didn't get enough of the cold at Keeneland (Is my sarcasm meter going off?),  we then went to the Kentucky Horse Park. As we walked in, the lady who took our money said, "Oh, a few more crazy people!" Yes, we concur.

The horse at the top is Funny Cide.

We met a retired Kentucky Derby winner, Funny Cide, and Da Hoss, who is one of only two horses to win two Breeders' Cup trophies. We checked out Cigar, who earned $9.9 million over his racing lifetime and is a descendent of Seattle Slew. Next time we visit, we'll have to pick a warmer day. That gives us a reason for another visit to Brent's, right?