[Leica] At the track

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

If any Lugger considers owning digital Leicas an inexpensive hobby he should
consider owning racehorses. My niece Margaret makes a small fortune by
owning a five horse racing stable in upstate New York. Of course she started
with a large fortune inherited from her banker father-in-law. The family
lives in a farming area just outside of Rochester, a once prosperous city
that has fallen on hard times since the downsizing of Kodak, and the failure
of Itel and Global Crossing. Three of the horses race at the Finger Lakes
Racetrack, the other two compete in jumping events.



We visit every spring for the opening of the racing season and to cheer on
her horses. Unfortunately our cheers often fall on deaf equine ears since
her stable rarely wins enough to keep it in the black, In fact right now she
is  fighting a battle with the Internal Revenue as to whether her stable is
a business or a hobby. Still it is a fascinating side of Americana that most
urban dwellers never get a chance to see.


I suspect that the main attraction of racing for my niece is admission to
the backtrack section of the racecourse and the reserved group of seats in
the owner's section of the stands. Just like Leica ownership for
photographers, it is a sign of membership in the elite. Still, she treats
her horses like children, exercising them, washing them, giving them apples.
Too bad the horses don't reciprocate by winning more races.


Here are a few pictures from the last time we had a day at the races. Most
of the action at the track takes place in the stables. Here the horses are
saddled up and being led to the track:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Walk+from+the+stable.jpg.html


Betters get a chance to see the horses at the post parade. Notice the
excitement:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Post+parade.jpg.html


Out of the starting gate:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Out+of+the+gate.jpg.html


A landmark event in the history of photography was Eadweard Mybridge's use
of 24 cameras to photography a race horse and win a bet for Gov. Leland
Stanford proving that a running horse would sometimes have all four feet off
the ground. I did it with one lucky shot:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Airbourne+horse.jpg.html


One of Margaret's horses, "Regally Blond," was blazingly fast but didn't
like to run out in front of other horses. Not good for a racing career. She
enjoyed jumping, however, and was morphed into a competitive show jumper:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Jumper.JPG.html


This is what small track horse owners look like. Niece Margaret is in the
striped blue shirt of the left of the picture, her long suffering husband
John in the blue shirt on the right:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Margaret+and+John.JPG.html


Larry Z