It's an exciting time here in Calgary. A huge international event will be taking place downtown Calgary in July called The Calgary Stampede. Of course, you've prpbably never heard of it unless you have some experience with rodeos, which I don't, but I'm looking forward to it because it's supposed to be HUGE! 
My first exposure so far was having the opportunity to attend some hourse races with a good friend of mine Andrea. Her work actually buys a couple of seats for the preliminary horse races that are run to qualify for the Stampede. It was so crazy! I've never been to any kind of horse race, and really the only exposure I have to it is from "My Fair Lady" when Eliza Doolittle yells out, "Move yer blummin' arces!!" Much to her disgrace.
We had awesome box seats and a buffet dinner, which was pretty good until it caught up with me around 3am...:) Her work also had some cool contest for whoever wore the cheesiest cowboy/girl shirt (no, it's not customary to wear plaid shirts at the races, in fact, I felt a little out of place).
There were to 8 races that night and they all started with the jockeys parading the horse they would be riding in the upcoming race, apparently you
might be able to win some money by just looking at the horse. (Just a side note, there are SOOOOO many factors that go into deciding what horse to bet on. I've determined through my brief experience that it's next to impossible to come up with some kind of theory on who will win. So, my conclusion? You might as well kiss that money good-bye on the way to the bet placing windows cause it's most likely the last time you'll see it.) Anywho, so the pic to the right is of the jockeys being led out for their little parade. Crazy thing, average weight of a jockey? 112 lbs. yikes! 
Racing to the finish line! The horses had great names like "Shooting Star" or "Tippinthescales" (okay I made that one up), um..."Mullumbimby" was one (not making that one up), "Bear Gentle Giant," "Driftin Cowboy" and "Celtic Warrior" just to name a few. Try saying that M one 10 times fast!
The next one, I'm holding the program they hand out that gives all the stats for the different horses. The two pages I'm holding up is 1 race. I'm pointing out the winning horse...okay, so not really. I lost all $6 I bet with. 
Andrea lives on the wild side with all her numerous bets...not really. I think she didn't even spend 20 bucks! All bets are $2 bets, but where you spend all the money is betting on three horses at once or four, and then you can cover all those combinations for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. It gets a little complicated. Those kind of bets can cost a lot of money...and the winnings, well, not really worth what you spend unless you bet on horses that don't have very good odds at winning. If they do and you bet the right ones, well, big money, but the reason the odds are low is because they're not expected to win, and most of the time they don't. It was a learning experience if anything and a lot of fun!! I really wanted to meet the jockeys and talk to them just to see what they were like. No such luck though.
