Soup, Soup, Soup, GOOOOO

Might as well put a "spoiler alert" out there.  All that cheering didn't help Soup in her 2nd race of the year. 4th place is still in the money, honey.  Now just like with my children, I'll make an excuse.  It was a freaking long race.  Her 1st race was 6 furlongs, this one was double the size (ok maybe not double the size, it was a mile and sixteenth).  Yeah, yeah I know all the horses were running the same distance, but whatever if the California Chrome owner can make excuses so can I :).

Thanks to her jockey Skye Chernetz, she seems to have a great rapport with our Soup.

This time I decided to get right down at track level.  Even a LONG race like this one doesn't give you a lot of time to scamper around trying to take pictures of different parts of the race, so these pics are the beginning and the end of the race.  The Starting Gate Crew (the Cowboys of Horse Racing) make loading these large (massive) horses into the gates look so easy.  Thankfully they wear helmets now.  These particular horses went into the gates pretty quietly.  I can't imagine what it must be like when a horse starts rearing and just refusing.  Amazing the starting crew don't back down and normally all the horses get loaded.  

They're at the post and they're off and running.

They're in the stretch and approaching the Finish Line.

Yes she didn't get her picture taken,in the winner's circle but still so exciting.  If you need a little excitement in your life, head over to Woodbine, these animals are amazing, the muscles - wow, so often their feet aren't even touching the ground.  And how on earth the jockey's stay on is something that defies gravity.  Great job.