Hector's Vacation

Its an incredibly windy day. The flag poles were under strain as we drove through the town centre and the clouds were rolling in a pace. Just as we arrived at the entrance it started to rain quite heavily so we headed for the cover of a large tree by the winners enclosure. The hores for the first race were on their way down to the start so we went into the paddock to watch the race from the screens there and under the cover of the trees. It was a claimers race and not very impressive.

As the crowds returned to watch the horses be unsaddled we caught up with JH and N Clement. Hector was once again very impressed at being able to get so close up to these powerful thoroughbreds; to hear them snorting for breath and stamping their hooves on the tarmac.


He made good friends with this dark horse who he assures me is called Petrand (it has to be said with a heavy french accent apparently). I just missed taking a photo of them shaking paws with each other as I was looking the other way at the time. Shame.

When we walked back over to the screens to look at the race again I noticed in a tree right in the centre of the paddock that there was some wild Missletoe growing- looking around for an opportunity to make the most of, there was sadly none. Hector summersaulted out of my pocket and made a dash for a golden retriever sat just the other side of the paddock but fortunately got his hoodie caught on a holly bush so I could get my hands on him before he was devoured by the waiting canine.

After explaining to him the vague idea of kissing someone under the missletoe rather than just using it as an excuse to kiss the nearest thing that you wanted to, I apologised to him for spoiling his fun and suggested that we went up to the stands to watch a race instead. The weather had rather culled the numbers for today's meeting, many choosing instead to stay at home and not brave the rain and winds. From the shelter of the upper stands, however, it was not too bad. The races were certainly good fun to watch.

We met Marilyn, Mike's daughter who works for the French racing commission- dressed very smartly in a beige suit and were given passes to the 'Salon Proprietaires'. This allowed us to stand inside at the top of the stands, in the warm and dry and to also wait in the owners bar where we could watch both the French and English racing on big screens whilst being waited on by a man in a white dinner jacket- twas very nice. The walls of the room had a gold on burgundy print wallpaper that complemented the funriture very tastefully and everyone there was only too happy to cater to our every need.

While we vaguely caught a glimpse of JH and Oscar in the paddock they had dashed off into the yard to saddle his two horses before we could collar them again; we didn't manage to find them again before leaving. I did bump into Jacques Rossi and his wife, though. She explained that I couldn't have seen her for many years as last time I was 'mechant'; who, Me? They were both on very good form and as Jacques was training two horses for this race we had to leave him to talk to his jockies. One of them was Kiriki, Mike's horse, which looked a bit spindly stood beside the other and with two wins under its belt at a lower class there was potential for a good performance. We went with Marilyn up to the Salon Proprietaires where we joined John Lynam to watch the race, being run on the all-weather track in the centre.

These may look in the wrong order but the race was more than one complete lap of the circuit, so the first image where all the horses are bunched up you can see that the jockeys are really riding them and that the strides are not as long as in the finish where they are really giving it everything they've got.

Here is the winning horse and jockey; the chestnut riden by a lady is the winner's escort from the course. They are always collected and then brought back into the winner's enclosure after all the other horses have been unsaddled so to recognise the victory. Its a very pleasant formality.