Today was the day that we attended one of our favorite Tucson events--horse racing at Rillito Park. The venerable old Rillito Park has been around for 50 years and is showing it's age, and some say that 2009 will be it's last year. I hope not, as it was at one time the premier site of quarter horse racing. It would be a shame if Tucson didn't have a racetrack. Now it has both quarter horse racing (straight line) and thoroughbred (turns and straightaways) on the same racing program. We love going to the races at Rillito because it's a very small track and you can get up close to the horses, jockeys, and the track itself. We go to people watch. You've got the rich, the poor, and everyone in between. You've got the cowboys, and the wannabe cowboys. Then you've got the handsome Hispanic guys in their crisply ironed jeans and shirts with their boots and hats. We don't bet a lot of money, partly because we usually don't have a clue as to what the information means in the racing form. Actually it's not that we don't understand the info, it's putting it into usable decision making info. I usually spend 15 minutes looking at the racing form info and then bet a horse based on the fact that it has a white sock on the left front foot. For the third race we had moved to the beginning of turn 1 since I wanted to get a picture of the horses going around that turn. As the horses thundered by I had my eye glued to the camera viewfinder and I heard the people around me gasp and groan. A jockey lay motionless in the middle of the turn! Someone around me said that the jockey was run over by a following horse. Immediately track personnel and jockeys not in the race ran to the unseated jockey. My first thought was that they would stop the race, but then I remembered other races where jockeys were unseated or horses were injured where the races went on. My thought was that they would stop this race since the jockey lay in the middle of the track, shortly after the finish line. The horses would be slowing down after the finish but normally they run through turn 1 and into turn 2 before finally slowing to a cool down speed. Plus the wild card in this scenario was the riderless horse who was still following the race pack. The mounted person who leads the horses to the starting gate rode to the exit of turn 4 and somehow indicated to the jockeys that something had happened ahead of them. The group attending to the unseated jockey seemed to split into two groups--one continuing to attend to the jockey and the second ran to the entrance of turn 1 and starting waving at the oncoming riders, alerting them to go wide into turn 1. Luckily the riderless horse followed the rest of them and no one was added to the injury list. The unseated jockey was still motionless and since the race was now over we all waited for the track ambulance to arrive. It did finally arrive, but apparently it was decided not to move the jockey until trained personnel from Tucson FD arrived. After being placed on a backboard and stretcher the jockey was taken to Tucson Medical Center. As he was wheeled by he was alert, moving his arms, and talking. I assume his condition was okay, since the paramedics were advising him to quit moving so much. These guy's and gal's may be small but they sure are tough. A huge sigh of relief came from the crowd when they saw his arm's move. We watched a couple more races and Betsy actually picked the winner of one race! I have no clue what her reasoning was. A nice day at the races, especially since the jockey seemed to be okay.
Top Picture--Okay, which horse is not on Medicare.
Second Picture--And Down The Stretch They Come!!
Third Picture--Trouble In Turn One
Bottom Picture--Warning The Oncoming Riders
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