Sunday, 22-FEB, was Hot Springs Village Day at the Oaklawn Racetrack in Hot Springs. We got free parking, free admission and free reserved seats. We also won $2.00 based on the ticket we got in the mail; maybe that paid for our gas. The track was nice. We had a chance to see the horses up close and enjoyed watching them race from either indoors (from our reserved seats) or outside on the rail of the track. As expected there is a statue of a horse and jockey at the entrance. Just inside there is a horse statue at the information booth. We just had to get a shot by the "helpful horse" (thanks Pat!).
Before each race, the horses are prepped inside. They're walked around this prep area until it's time to go. Then the trumpet sounds, the jockeys get on their mounts and it's off to the track. Note: we thought number 5 looked good and strong. So we picked him to win the 3rd race. He started strong but ran out of gas. He finished near the back of the pack. Glad we didn't place a real bet!
Next is what we call the "parade of horses." The horses are slowly walked over to the starting gate.
Here they come - "down the stretch" towards the finish line.
Here's a 7 second video of the finish of the 3rd race of the day. Lots of yelling and excitement in the background.
After each race the tractors go around the track to get it smooth for the next race; the racetrack version of ice hockey's Zamboni.
We didn't place any bets, so we didn't loose any money. Good thing too. It seems like every horse we picked didn't do that well. Maybe we were a bad luck charm. We did get to try one of the track's famous Ruben sandwiches; they were good. We had a fun day at the races. We'll go back next year for HSV day.
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