02 May 2010
Bubble Economy
(Kelly-the-attorney, late of Oakton, on her 30th birthday/ All Photos Socotra)
I am still in a bit of a daze this morning. There is a fog hanging around, mentally, anyway, and a lot of mail piled up while I checked out to attend the Virginia Gold Cup at Great Meadow in Faquier County yesterday.
The news doesn’t make a lot of cognitive sense. Oil continues to spew into the Gulf. A crude truck bomb was found in Times Square; Boston is out of drinking water. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, I thought. I clicked through some notes that said The President had flown over a pal’s house after dodging the rain managed to make a speech up at my alma mater in Ann Arbor, and it was well received. I hate received updates on the event through the sunny afternoon at The Meadow on my smart phone the afternoon before.
Technology is swell, I think.
I had to think of college while it was happening, since out tickets were to the University Row, an alliance of fifty-odd alumni groups in the capital to reserve several tents along the north rail of the race course. Food is catered and there are several full-service bars that run all day.
(Hat, with dots)
A fleet of Martz buses convey hundreds of twenty-somethings out through Thoroughfare Gap to Loudoun County for the affair. And a couple geezers. My younger son told me I was the oldest person on the bus, if not the County.
I thanked him for the information.
The whole operation is pretty slick, and radically diminishes the number of DUIs that could happen, though of course with no responsibility to drive, the kids can indulge to their heart’s desire. I was interested to see how things worked this year. Last year they got the food out of cycle with the alcohol, and there was more than one pretty sundress face down in the grass by the fence by late afternoon.
This is more a social event than a horse race, and I can understand why some are critical of the affair, but this is the first chance of the season for the women to dress up and wear improbable hats, and the guys put on ties and go-to-hell pants in the post-modern psychedelic Prep style.
I was interested in the effects of the recession, and the collapse of the bubble economy. Time was that the tents displayed an amazing amount of corporate largesse from the big consulting firms, and the financial houses.
There were many fewer corporate-sponsored tents yesterday, but there still seemed to be a full house, maybe 50,000 people gathered all around the miles-long perimeter. In he hey-day of the bubble, Erik Prince’s private Blackwater Security Company provided skydivers to delivery the American flag to Founder’s Hill at before the first Post.
That was gone, as is Blackwater itself. They have renamed the company “Xe,” for reasons known best to Erik, and are maintaining a much lower profile.
If some of the bells and whistles have come off the races, the clothes are still remarkable. The woman uniformly looked great. I am a traditionalist, and wore my Virginia Country Lawyer costume, circa 1962: seersucker suit, tie, white bucks and straw.
(Vic and Pals)
The jaunty chapeau kept some of the sun off, but not all of it. The alcohol was plentiful, and mindful of my limits, I took a long hike before the first race to sweat off the buzz, and give the kids a chance to party without the Old Man hanging around.
Before I set off, my older son asked if Virginia had a beef with Kentucky, with the Gold Cup being held the same day as the Kentucky Derby, which we would probably not see due to being on the bus when the race was run at Churchill Downs.
I said it was actually the other way around- the Travers Stakes up at Saratoga in New York State is the oldest flat-track horse-race, the first iteration having been run in 1864, with the Kentucky Derby’s first outing first in 1875.
“The Cup is a steeplechase, and they have been jumping timber and water barriers in the shadow of the Blue Ridge formally since 1844, but before that to Colonial times, when Kentucky was just a rumor.” I took a sip of a watery Julep.
“Jefferson ran his ponies against George Washington,” I said. “So the Old Kentucky Home is fairly new construction if you look at it that way.”
(The Girls of University Row)
I wandered off and wandered along the gravel road that rings the rail-side tents. If there is a resurgence in the economy, or continued malaise, you could not tell it. The crowd was here to party.
I am no equestrian, but I do admire the ponies and the serious people who love them. I have heard that the Steeplechase is not as brutal on the ponies as is the industrial and quite brutal process involved in the racetrack business. There, the young colts and occasional gifted filly are pushed to maximum performance before they have fully grown into their bodies.
Seeing a racehorse put down on the track is about as horrible as things get.
I bought a program at the hut at the base of Founder’s Hill, where the old money and he University of Virginia have their tents. I was interested to get some perspective on the event.
I looked at the list of horses, and saw there were a lot of veteran ponies in today’s field of eleven vying for the $75,000 Cup was the defending champion Patriot’s Path, last fall’s International Gold Cup victor Seeyouattheevent, last year’s Pennsylvania Hunt Cup winner, Erin Go Bragh and 2008 Gold Cup winner Bubble Economy.
You can’t say that the Breeders don’t have a sense of humor. When that last gelding was foaled we were looking at the collapse of the dot.coms, right? Odd that the times have come around again with the name so apt.
I wandered back toward University Row, marveling at the hats and the dresses and lavish tailgates laid out on the backs of the Range Rovers.
I was back in place in time for the Third Race, and found a place on the rail near the Old Elis of the Yale Club, one of whom could have stepped out of 1895 in his straw boater, vest and white trousers. I heard the call to the post, and saw the gaggle of horses circling across the meadow, waiting for the flag to drop. There are no starting gates, none of the mechanical process that goes along with the start of the Derby.
The horses went off and disappeared behind the hills. They thundered by twice, close abeam the rail, and it was literally breathtaking.
(The Gold Cup, approaching the North Rail)
We could not see the finish from the north rail, but the scratchy public address system informed us that Bubble Economy outlasted Bon Caddo in the stretch to take the Cup, not that anyone at University Row was really clear on what was going on out in the Meadow.
Apparently it was exciting, and I wished I could have seen it. Bubble Economy took the lead approaching the final turn, yielded late to Bon Caddo after the last fence but surged back to win by a neck.
With the 2010 Cup decided, I wandered back up through the hats to find the boys and their pals. No one paid any further attention to the races, and a very good time indeed was being had under the tents.
When the time came, an announcement was made that the buses would start to depart for Washington, and with much ado, our little throng ambled back up the green hill to find our way home.
I arrived back home without the boys- they announced their intent to party on after we dismounted from the Martz Bus. I found the police cruiser and drove home, half in the bag and wanting a shower.
When I got there, I discovered Super Saver had won the 136th Kentucky Derby on a
sloppy track, with jockey Calvin Borel having ridden three of the last four Derby
winners.
It was a dry course here, and no horses were hurt that I am aware of. I don't know if I will go to the International Gold Cup in the Fall that closes out the racing season here. The kids from Washington don't come in the sort of numbers they do in the Spring, and there are a lot more breeches and boots on the folks around the rail, and not nearly so much cleavage.
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Subscribe to the RSS feed!