NEWMARKET BOOGIE NIGHTS

Last night Ray, Claire, Graeme and I excitedly headed out of town to attend the horse races at Newmarket. The evening was slated as six races, followed by entertainment on an open stage. Sounds fun, right?



Let's just say that it would be an understatement to describe the weather as "hostile". We're talking tumultuous rain, high winds and dark skies (on what had been optimistically forecast, a week previous, as "the hottest day of the year!"). A third of the horses were scratched because of a poor track surface. And the planned entertainment for the night, a highish-profile boy bander, suffered an accident earlier in the day and had to cancel his show.

Good thing I don't like boy banders.

The boy bander was replaced by - wait for it - an ABBA tribute band. (Aside: I just don't get tribute bands. Doesn't it seem weird to be impersonating someone else - particularly if they're still alive? If you're good enough to impersonate someone famous, doesn't it stand that you're good enough to sing your own songs and develop your own original act?). The performance was satisfactory - although the band members displayed a disturbing tendency for the women to look like men and the men to look like women (perhaps cross-dressing was this tribute group's claim to originality??) and some of the classics like "Dancing Queen" even had the security guards grooving.



I have to admit deriving the most entertainment, however, from watching the people in the stands (we were in the field looking towards the stage, which was located in a gap in the stands). Has anyone else ever noticed ABBA's tendency to get even the most reserved folks up and dancing (come on, you've seen those "Mama Mia!" commercials). One fellow in particular, in his tie and spectacles - in a disturbing likeness to my highschool typing teacher - was having a TERRIFIC time shaking his booty and I spent as much time chuckling at his enthusiastic display as the shimmying band members.

It was fun watching the horses that did run, and the races were uneventful - always a good thing in my book. We tried our hands at betting but it's a good thing none of us are thinking of giving up our day jobs; the only time one of us won anything was in a race that only ran four horses. We each placed a bet on a different horse and Claire was the lucky winner...of 6 whole pounds. No photos of the horses themselves - rain combined with slow camera shutter speed for most unsatisfactory results. But picture wet horses galloping madly over even wetter turf, past screaming crowds, and you'll get the picture.