The Spa

Rachel Alexandra

There's racing and then there's racing racing. I used to enjoy thoroughbred racing. I will be forever grateful to Point Given for giving me a way to escape the immediate aftermath of the events on 9-11-01. I spent a few days on the Cape that October before I picked up my aunt in Oxford (she was supposed to fly from Logan to Pittsburgh on 9-11) and after a short visit here, I drove her to my cousin's near Pittsburgh.

From Pittsburgh I drove to Ashland, KY where The Mister and I lived '78-'83, and then on to Lexington. I stayed at one of our favorite inns, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, caught two days of racing at Keeneland and visited Point Given and his stable mates, including Seattle Slew and Silver Charm, at Three Chimneys Farm.

It was a beautiful autumn that year and I was lucky to be able to take off the way I did.

Now I find it kind of sad that since then I've come to see horse racing as just another example of excess, another lovely notion ruined by too much money. And the connections of Rachel Alexandra are a perfect example.

As of yesterday, Rachel A. is scheduled to run at Saratoga on the 5th. Despite my misgivings, I'd really like to see her run. But, and this is why I'm trying to sort all this through here, the 5th is also the day the draft horses compete in six and eight horse hitches at the state fair and I always love seeing them.

'Tis a quandary.