I admit that I do not normally go to the horse races. I vaguely remember going to the races when I was visiting friends in Chicago decades ago, but I don’t remember much about it. But, this race program sounded interesting. They were going to be running camels, ostriches and zebras! How could we resist?
Neither Konnie nor Michael nor I really knew what was going on, but after Michael found a place to park – which was no mean feat – we plunked down our money and found a seat in the grandstand.
There were a few horse races first.
It was interesting trying to figure out what was going on. It seems that each race horse had a non-racehouse that escorted him to the gate. A horsey buddy system!
Here they are – heading to the gate.
They go thundering by.
Eventually, they cross the finish line. Some are winners, some aren’t. The bets are paid off and about half an hour later, they run another race.
We wandered down from the grandstand to see what else we could see.
We found a guy snapping photos with his own camera and got into a conversation with him. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind taking a shot of us – and here we are!
They had the camels out for us too look at. When they took them away, we figured it was time for the races we came to see.
There go the camels!
Here are the zebras being led to the starting gate.
And there they go!
The last race we stayed for was the ostrich race. Here they are! Coming out of the gate!
They actually rode the ostriches and those birds could really move!
This one managed to go faster that the others because he was able to get rid of his rider.
And the rider came in last.
Were the zebra sufficiently zany?
How funny! I’ve never heard of camel, zebra and ostrich races!
They were new to me, too, Norma-Jean!