2012 Breeders' Cup

What a fun 5-days off from work! It has been well worth all the money spent to come down and I really enjoyed my 5 days away from work. Do I have to go back?

I'm not even sure where to start. It was great to see the family in San Clemente and see the new house. Seeing family is always good. The weekend highlight (no offense to anyone) was the Breeders' Cup, though. It was excellent weather. I don't think anyone could have asked for better. It was sunny, small breeze, and low 80's. I went with Tori and we got there about an hour later than we wanted because we went to the San Gabriel Nail Supply store that was about 15 minutes away from the track. It was like a time warp in there! It did not feel like we were in there for an hour. Yes, we bought some polish, but we won't discuss how much. I will say that their polishes are cheaper than buying them retail. OPI go for about $8 and they sold them for $5.25. China Glaze were about 50% off (around $3) and some were only $2 (Misa, which are really hard to find). It was a lot of fun. They didn't have all the new collections, but they had a fair amount. It was fun! I've been to one other nail supply place in San Jose and they are fun to shop in! I will say the fumes started getting to me towards the end, but it wasn't too bad. Huge store in San Gabriel!

Arriving at the track that "late" (3 hours after the gate opened at 8am) meant we parked in the boondocks, but it wasn't too bad. We walked in and it was crazy! I didn't realize they had brought in some of the food trucks of LA in (Tastes of LA). They also had some of the horse rescues there and tents of merchandise and a Zenyatta merchandise tent. Not to me to mention 55,123 people were there that day. We didn't buy seat tickets, but it wasn't too bad and there were seats around if we were inclined to sit. It took a little adjusting to figure out where things were and where we were allowed to go. The paddock was closed off, which is a little bit of a bummer, but with all the family members of everyone wanting in to see the horse in the paddock and all the people, I can see why it was blocked off. The paddock was FULL of people. It was PACKED. I usually like watching the horses get saddled and then walking around the paddock, but it was too crazy. So we went to the track to watch the races and try to find a spot while everyone was at the paddock. One nice thing is there's a kind of migration in horse racing of people going to the paddock to see the horses and then walking to the track to watch the race and then back again. It's basically what kills the time between races (about 30 min). Before the race ends, the next horses are entering the saddling area to get saddled. So sometimes you sometimes have to sacrifice what good views or something to get to somewhere else (or just be quick to leave and enter).

Anyway, we missed the 4th race, which was the first BC race, to get orientated, but we did see the National Anthem get sung. I say "see" because the PA system had issues so we didn't get to hear it all. Really? Big event like this and the PA malfunctions...oh well. I found the Zenyatta merchandise tent. So many things I wanted and held back! I got the new t-shirt and a tote bag, but I wanted the new poster (actually 2 new posters), the mini pewter that was sold out online, and the black tote bag, but they were expensive and I knew I wanted some BC souvenirs too. I ended up with 2 BC shirts. I found a really cute one after I found the typical venue one (location, logo, year). I wanted a sweatshirt, but the sweatshirt I wanted they either sold out of or didn't bring to the location. It's available on-line (I was stalking the on-line store before I went), but I don't know if I want to spend the cost for shipping so now I'm debating whether to get it or wait to see if it'll still be available when they do the discount. I think discounts tend to be the final, final stuff and that is usually the really expensive stuff left. We'll see!

After that, we went and watched the 5th race. We watched a few them. We had a good spot near the finish line. Nice thing about Santa Anita is the grandstand blocks the sun so the grandstand and apron are all in the shade, which was nice. The races were good. It's amazing to see that many good horses compete against each other. I've only see one Grade 1 race up to that point and these races were all top notch with top notch horses. It was crazy and especially hard to figure out who you wanted to win. Normally I can pick horses based on pedigree, odds, jockey, owner, and trainer, but these required some studying because they all were accomplished horses so you needed to look at works and past races. Past races isn't just looking to see if they won, but where they placed, by how much, the race distance, who placed or won, the race fractions, etc. It's time consuming! It's also not what I'm used to either. It made me feel like a real handicapper. I didn't so much do any predictions on Sat, but I tried before the day and it was definitely time consuming. I can see why the Daily Racing Form is important to have.

After a few races, we wandered around and then decided to go to the infield. I've never been in an infield of a racetrack before. It's huge! I knew you could bring lawn chairs for the infield, but figured they'd fill up quickly. Not quite the case! There's this huge area in the back of it that looks like the size of a soccer field. It's lower than the rest. Looks like they might have dug it out to be a lake (lots of tracks have lakes in the center), but grassed it in instead. Outside of that, there were areas to sit on the "rim". There was also the main area that had a big playground for kids, 2 fountains, bathroom, betting windows, mini-BC stores, food, and the jumbo screens too. I know some days they even have a petting zoo back there. It's a really nice area! It was like being at a park, but it's in the center of a racetrack. People had blankets, small coolers, chairs, and one had a radio. We wandered far out away from everyone and decided to watch the races from the back. It was hard to hear the PA system, but it wasn't a big deal since I could read/watch the races at home afterwards. We also couldn't see the start for some races or the finishes for any of them, but it was okay. I could see the horses with only the fence and the inside dirt track between me and them. It also was a really nice day so between races we laid in the grass and enjoyed the weather. When a race started, we got up and went to the fence. I really enjoyed it and it was a nice little reprieve from the nuttiness at the grandstand (so many smokers, downside of the the racetrack). You could also hear the horses hooves hitting the ground it was that quiet out there. I tried getting video of it, but the dumb plane and helicopters kept coming by right then. So I heard it the first time and not the 2 next times. Grrrr.

After that, we went back to watch the Classic from the grandstand. Mostly, I wanted to get photos of the buglers, which I hadn't done, yet. That took a little work because I wasn't sure exactly where they'd be so I asked the guy at the head of the Clubhouse entrance. He was nice and said he'd let me go across to see if I could get a photo (I didn't get told I was in the wrong place for once! Yay!). Turns out, as I was waiting over there, I couldn't get actually to the spot I wanted because there was another person to bypass, that they were on the other side to do the call to post so I had to run back around and try to find a spot. Unfortunately, that was around the time Tony Bennett arrived to sing "Best is Yet to Come." So it was PACKED where I was. I missed the very first few seconds of the call to post, but not too much. Usually, the buglers do some other song piece afterwards, but Bennett sang in lieu of that. The song was sort of the "theme song" for this year's Breeders' Cup (it was in all the advertisements and the "slogan"). I watched the last race from my spot (the $5 million Classic) and that's when my camera was running low on battery and I got fuzzy photos. Oh well. I got to see it in person at least!

We left the track afterwards and headed to the mall to get dinner and see a friend while the parking lot cleared out. It was sort of like playing human frogger...Luckily the parking lot was pretty packed with cars trying to leave, but cars were packing out, merging, etc. It was a little scary sometimes! We also had to find a hole in the fence because the parking lots for the mall and the track boarder each other, but there's a fence to delineate between the two (also probably to keep track people from parking at the mall). We found a hole and grabbed dinner with one of my Leaky Cauldron friends. It was fun to chit chat and nice to eat and relax. I got a root beer float, which was nice! After that, we headed back down to San Diego for shopping fun and relaxation!

I took lots of photos, but had certain things I wanted photos of. I got them all! Some are better photos than others, though. LoL My camera died at the very last race and I was rushing to get photos so I wasn't making sure they were focused. Oops. Oh well. I did get my normal stuff: Paddock, track view, bugler(s), horses running (start, finish), carriage horses, and heading to the track/parading. For this day...In particular, I got the Zenyatta statue! Yay! Also got the Breeders Cup statue too.

Tori and I want to go again next year! We want to buy seats, dress up, and wear fun hats. There's also the possibility if we wanted, that we could just go to the infield with lawn chairs (bring some snacks/drinks too!). I tell you, it was really relaxing being out there. It's a whole other experience and just as fun. The apron, I didn't realize, also was allowed chairs, which are probably some of the better seats to have. You can bring a chair and sit there and you're super close to the track. For some reason I thought the apron wasn't allowed chairs. It would require you to arrive as early as possible to get an apron seat, but the infield has lots of space. I definitely would sit near the back, though, because the hedges for the home stretch sort of block the view. There are no hedges in the back stretch to block the view. 

At any rate, it was a lot of fun!

Here are all my photos: 2012 Breeders' Cup Photos/Videos

There are just a couple of videos. My nails for the BC are also there at the end.

I'll update with a few movies later in the week. Returning to work today (Tues) was okay. I had to clean-up a few places, but apparently it was far worse while I was gone and it really wasn't too bad. We were also short staffed a lot the past week. One of my co-workers has pneumonia and another got sick. Ugh! Oh well. I work 2 days, take a day off, and then work 7 days and start back on a normal week (2 days off and then 5 days). My vacation will well make-up for the 7 days and also temporary manager status while my manager is off at another store for a week and a lead gone AND temp leads helping out. Oh yeah, I need to remember my happy vacation to get me through the next 2 weeks!

With that...I'm off!