Since our hotel offers us free high speed internet, I thought I'd blog daily about the Angle-Shaw KentuckyFest 2010 trip!
We flew in yesterday and spent the late afternoon and early evening exploring Cincinnati. I fell in love with it instantly - a medium sized river town with great food, two pro sports stadiums within skipping distance and a wonderful blend of old and new architecture? I'd be crazy NOT to love it! We ate at the famous Montgomery Inn Boathouse on the Ohio River (Nathan is eating his leftovers as we speak) and I left wondering how I'm ever going to eat "regular" food again!
We were up early this morning and out to door to Louisville. I thought it would be a great way to get Nathan into the Bluegrass state of mind to take a scenic route past all the farms and historic old towns. We drove past Keeneland - there will be a whole day devoted to this gorgeous old track on Friday - and through Versailles and Midway, two of my absolute favorite places in the world.
We spent a good chunk of time at Churchill Downs this afternoon - touring the Kentucky Derby Museum, walking around the grounds of the track and paying our respects to 2006 Derby winner Barbaro. I can't believe I hadn't known about the devastating effects last August's flood had on the track and the museum. They had been closed until Sunday! A restoration prject that should have taken about 18 months crammed into only 6...there are still some museum exhibits that are unfinished but the ones that have been restored are AWESOME. It's a lot more interactive than I remember it - Nathan and I did this awesome racing simulation where we chose a running style for our "horses" (yes, there were fake horses to sit on - I chose the gray one, big surprise) and had buttons to move left or right and a certain number of "crops" to use to move our horse forward. My pretend Keenan and I stalked the early leaders, found a hole on the rail and won by about a length and a half!
We were pretty satisfied with our day there, but it was about to get better. On our way back to the car, we walked by Angie (our walking tour guide) as she was leaving for the day. We waved and thanked her again and she asked if we'd had a chance to take the backside tour. We said we hadn't, as there had only been two spots left, and she told us to call as soon as possible and reserve spots for early the next morning. If we got there in time for the 8:30 am tour, we'd get to see the morning workouts on the track - and there was a strong possibility that some of those would be Derby horses. So over a late lunch/early dinner, we made the call and worked a morning at Churchill into our day. Tomorrow, we'll be up before dawn and on our way to Louisville. We'll watch some morning workouts, have a late breakfast and head back to Three Chimneys Farm to tour the stallion division. I can't wait to see Point Given, Smarty Jones, Dynaformer, Rahy and Big Brown! In 2007 when my mom and I toured Three Chimneys, we got to see an actual mating take place - I think that would be pretty rad. Imagine if that foal were to go on to greatness!
Well, off to bed here in Lexington - 5:30 will come EARLY. More to come tomorrow!
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