Beautiful morning at 35538.
Miles off to school. Toga Day. Something to do with Latin class. The final baseball game of the fall season later this afternoon. Fredericksburg on a Thursday night. Nothing better.
I’m off to ride Lemonade Thursday, another retired Riverdee runner who is now a fox hunter with Laird George at Whitewood Farm. Another steeplechase graduate living the good life. His third career. I’m slowly cranking the engine of an old steeplechase jockey. It hasn’t turned over yet. Crank, crank, crank. Prod, prod, prod. Kick, kick, kick. I circled Nov. 5 on my calendar. As George said, “You’ll be sore either way.” And as Chris Ambrose said, “If not now when?” That was for a hunt today, which I didn’t manage. So a ride will suffice.
With a list of races to watch, starting at Auteuil at 7:55, flitting through Ludlow and Nottingham, then Keeneland and Aqueduct, Presque Isle and Penn National and winding up at Charles Town for the seventh, it’s easy to become an observer, rather than a participant. I fall into that trap plenty of days, hunched over a computer, scratching off lists and watching other people do other things.
So off I go this morning for a quiet ride around the most bucolic land I know.
“If not now when?”
