04 May 2008
 
A Day at the Races

The tip of my nose itches a bit from the first sunburn of the season. My straw hat had provided decent enough protection, but sunscreen probably wouldn’t have hurt. Fifty thousand of us were at the Meadows when the last of the buses was parked neatly in rows in the pasture up inside the tree line that separates it from Old Tavern Road.
 
Our column of the Martz transportation empire loaded at the Rock Bottom Brewery in Ballston, and I snagged a seat on the very first unit. Others were boarding all across Northern Virginia.
 
The day was fine. Better than fine. It was just about perfect for a day at the races.
 
My son and his girlfriend checked in later, and boarded one of the passenger liners further back in the row. I intended to hang with them for a while, but did not want to cramp their style. Apparently two young women in shorts got on the bus, looking around at the hats on the women, and the colorful spring dresses and the young men in ties, and asked if they were mis-attired.
 
There was a general silence of approbation, though there might have been a snicker or two. If you have to ask, you have missed at least one level of the bus experience.
 
Our Martzliner featured a Bus Captain the University of Virginia named John, who introduced himself courteously on the intercom. He was an older young man, hair line just beginning to recede. The role of the Bus Captain is to take the logistics component out of the hands of the driver, who was free to concentrate on the actual navigation of the mammoth wheeled machines.
 
I was seated next to a young man in a red short-sleeved polo shirt with a severe haircut, who was also named John. As an aside, as the day went on, I discovered almost everyone was named John at the Meadow, which made introductions much easier. I asked if he was a Marine, realizing that the high-and-tight also fit Army: Rangers, perhaps, or the ceremonial Old Guard from Ft. Myer.
 
“No, I am a contractor. I work for Northrop Grumman. I cut my own hair. I keep it like this so that my co-workers think I am prior-service.” He offered me a beer, which I declined.
 
A young woman in the seat in front of us was wearing a sweeping white hat, below which was a placid mid-western face with bright blue eyes. She introduced herself as Nicolle, and spent the duration of the trip out I-66 and through the Thoroughfare Gap explaining her migration from Michigan State University to the Justice Department, and the even stranger journey of her friend Ruth, who had started her odyssey to the Virginia Gold Cup in Lincolnshire, in a village outside Leeds, England.
 
Ruth looked as though she were prepared for a day at the Grand National back home.
 
John was employed as an instructor in the computer arts, and was clearly outside his comfort zone in his short-sleeved shirt. Bus Captain John was orchestrating the distribution of screw-driver cocktails throughout the cabin, and they were strong ones.  He was impeccably attired in a Brooks Brothers shirt and plaid tie, pleated tan trousers and well-tailored sport jacket. The John next to me pointed at the effortless and timeless fashion, and asked Nicolle how one got to look like that.
 
“Would I have to take a woman shopping with me? How do you do that?”
 
Nicholle smiled, and explained that you started with some basics that you could mix and match. It was the only way to build a wardrobe for Washington. John was clearly mystified by the process of Prep, which is inculcated in childhood, and refined over a lifetime.
 
For my part, I was in Virginia Country Lawyer garb, circa 1962: Antique bow tie, straw hat, white shoes and real seersucker suit. The rest of the bus was thoroughly Prep. A lot of madras plaid on the men, either in jackets, pants or ties, and fantastic colors in the dresses of the women.
 
The screwdriver lasted long enough for the bus to get parked at the start of the forth row at the top of the meadow. Bus Captain John bade us a pleasant race day, reminded us not to leave anything on the vehicle, since it was highly unlikely that any of us would be seeing one another, much less this particular conveyance at the end of the day.
 
It was easy enough to determine the first-timers on debarkation on the rich greensward. To match the fashion, some of the women had worn their best come-hither heels, not considering the consequences of the spike and the grass.
 
I wandered away from the bus and across the emerald field. There is magnificence in the terrain of Fauquier County: rolling rich turf and low green hills with the new leaves the color of shamrocks.  This is one of the big paydays out in the County. The caterers have been cooking for days. Every law enforcement official from every jurisdiction was present, Blue and gray-clad State Patrol on motorcycles, and all the locals to provide comprehensive security, in case a Prep riot might break out.
 
I purchased a program in a vane attempt to handicap the seven races, and wandered through the commercial tents, where frantic race-goers were purchasing hats to try to blend in with the crowd. There was a tent occupied by a cigar merchant selling exotic stogies to the young men and the adventurous young women.
 
Two burly plain-clothes country detectives, buzz-cut in bad suits, looked on with benign suspicion at three young men wearing remarkably life-like horse masks near the start of the row of rail side tents.
 
High thin clouds in the blue above, a breeze that made the jacket on my suit not oppressive. Just about perfect for the mini-steeplechase of the Jack Russell terriers in the paddock, and the parachute insertion of the gigantic American flag and the Blackwater commercial commandos.
 
Every consulting and legal services company in Washington was represented along the row, each with it’s own exquisite buffet and lavish open bar. I stopped at one that is sponsored by the family of an old friend, who is currently the Deputy of the oldest Spook agency in town. Generations of the family are always present, the next rising in the tradition, with stories about engagement parties and weddings and new babies.
 
The two-legged traffic along the outer fence was as entertaining as the four-legged on the meadow. The Seigneur of the family had suffered a mild stroke since I had seen him last, but his cummerbund and bow tie with equine symbols was as crisp as ever, and he had set up his lawn chair to watch the passing dresses. 
 
Eventually I wound up with my son and his girlfriend at the great Fraternity and Sorority party that is the University Row aggregation of Alumni associations. They have joined together to sponsor eight or ten tents in a common perimeter with two full bars, two beer and wine stations, and a bottomless buffet of food with offerings changed through the day by harried servers in blue polo shirts.
 
There are a few codgers in the crowd, like me, and I enjoy the role of senior citizen. When I finally linked up with my son the bugle summons to the post echoed out across the meadow for the Maiden Hurdle, sponsored by Blackwater. This race was for four-year olds and up, two and a half miles with fifteen fences. The purse was $25,000, and I liked Coup de Ville and Sword of Dubai.
 
In consultation with his crowd, we picked Sword, and placed our fistful of single dollars with an improvised bookmaker. We lost, of course, since Coup took the cup, but that wasn’t the point.
 
Thereafter, the sea of youth surged past on the rail, and every half hour the horses thundered by in the Steeplethon three-miler, the Allowance Hurdle, and through the program to the Porche Chase, the culmination of the afternoon. The mysterious though familiar interaction of young men and young women grew more frank as the stock of liquor behind the bars went down.
 
Alumni from Fordham and James Madison Universities used me as a prop for some group portraits, and it is gratifying to be of some utility. Later in the afternoon, some revelers found necessary respite in naps next to the outer fence, garb still colorful though the wearers were recumbent.
 
I don’t know who took the cup for the Porche Chase, since the clouds come in late in the day, and buses back to Arlington seemed like a good idea. Everyone’s conduct was impeccable, including the young man spreadeagled on his back, calmly smoking a cigarette and looking upward near the boarding area. I observed no unpleasantness, save only a brief scene as the Martzliner pulled out of the lot, a woman in a lovely dress hurling something hard at a young man in madras plaid.
 
The only thing sunburned really was the tip of my nose, and on the whole, it was an excellent day at the races.
 
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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