Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Saturday night saw Livi and myself heading to Ben’s house in Boxford for yet another of Ben & Nic’s dinner parties!
As I had suspected, the food was better than the last time – which itself was better than the first! The night led to us sampling the 2 local pubs in Boxford and then relaxing in possibly the cosiest room in the world with some wine.
Despite not going to sleep until about half three in the morning, and sleeping on a couch that was a little shorter than me, Livi and I got up and headed home from Ben’s just after ten. Within an hour we had been home, changed, eaten and made our way to Higham racecourse.
Once again, I had no idea what to expect. Livi had told me that Nigel, the thoroughbred that she rides, was an ex point-to-point racer that had made a good few thousand pounds in winnings in his career. I also knew that it was a race around the course which had jumps throughout it rather than a simple flat racecourse.
It cost £10 each for us to get into the grounds, and we may have ended up spending money on more Joules clothing (they had a tent there!), on some light refreshments and of course we also spent some money with the Countryside Alliance; a booklet on hunting laws, some hilarious postcards and I got a book on the various aspects of hunting in the UK.
The races themselves proved to be thoroughly enjoyable. Each of them covered just over 2 miles, which seemed to equate to about 2 and a half laps of the course. The addition of the jumps also presented the potential for drama as riders got thrown.
The first jump that I seen horses clear was also the first jump that someone was thrown. The poor guy was lying on the floor for a little bit too long and the paramedics had made their way towards him. Fortunately he was on his feet by the time they got to him. Livi pointed out that above all else, they would be immensely winded after their fall.
The races occurred every half hour or so, with each horse being presented in the paddock before their race. Oh and the winner of each race was presented with a fine bottle of Adnams champagne and an Adnams hip flask.
I have to say that the weather helped a lot, it was a gorgeous frosty morning and the sun was high in the very clear, and very blue sky. This combined with the thunderous rumble of the horses galloping around was just perfect!
Quite obvious what this is, the race card with the details of each horse and rider in each race
I had been experimenting with my phones ‘BestPic’ feature in order to capture the horses as they passed us. This was one of the times where I managed to press the button after they had cleared the jump
One of the jumps at the far end of the racecourse, still frosty – the position of the horse reminds me of Muybridge’s studies of movement
One of the occasions that I did manage to capture some of the horses going over the jump
Whilst selecting the BestPic mode on my phone, I kept seeing this on the screen – I thought it was quite a nice image
The sun was against me for this one, but it was the only attempt I made at a picture of the jockeys just after a race
Just a general view at the back of the other watchers, I loved the homemade scaffolding platform used by one family – look to the left of the picture
Another ad-hoc viewing platform, the back of a Defender!
A flat cap, Tweed Jacket and a dog – the uniform of the day!
We managed to get a bit closer to the side of the jump for this race
Not sure if this was from the same race or not, but I did manage to get the horse whilst still airborne over the jump
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