A friend of ours invited us to join him at the Virginia Gold Cup steeplechase horse race today. He had a tent along the rail for the event, and we had a wonderful time. Lots of food, plenty to drink, lovely day. I'd never been to any sort of horse race before, and it was more interesting than your typical quarterhorse type of race, which I've only seen on television.
In the third race, part of the course went through a shallow pond. One of the horses slipped and fell in the pond. The jockey got off and up with no problem, but the horse couldn't get back up. It was quite a distance away, but it appeared that the jockey, soon joined by others, lifted the horse's head to keep it out of the water and calm him down. After about five minutes, they managed to get the horse back on his feet and all was well.
We left before the end (youngest son had to get to a sleepover birthday party), but we heard that in the last race, one of the jockeys fell from his horse, landing on his head. A medevac helicopter was summoned to get him to a hospital. I hope he's okay.
