Saturday Morning at the Track

I hadn’t realized how much I missed my regular jaunts to Mountaineer until I headed there on Saturday. One of the perks of writing the racetrack veterinarian mystery series was the research. I just HAD to hang out at the track to get the feel of that lifestyle right. Now that I’ve put that series on hiatus until the first two books sell and I’m writing about an entirely different world, I’ve had no “reason” to make the 30-mile-plus one-way drive to track. Gas prices haven’t helped.

But Saturday, I went anyway. To hell with four dollars a gallon.

My trainer friend Jessi has an entirely new crop of horses in her stable these days. I walked several of them around and around the shedrow. We gave a couple of them baths. Which meant we also got a bit wet. With the thermometers reading ninety degrees, I didn’t much care.

One major disappointment was the demolition of the rec hall, which sold the world’s best French fries. I dream of those fries. A new rec hall has been built, but it’s under new ownership and I suspect the fries won’t be quite the same. I’m in mourning.

I have high hopes of returning next weekend. I mean, do I really NEED an excuse (like a novel in progress) to spend time visiting my friend and the horses? Besides, I may just find a plot for a short story during my trips around the shedrow. Or even a whole other book. Maybe with a hotwalker as the protagonist.

Hmm.