The Slower Road

We’re nearing the tail-end of March Madness, for those of you who follow college basketball, or who have read previous posts here about the Univ. of Kentucky’s basketball team.

Sadly, our UK Wildcats lost in the Elite 8 round and didn’t make it to the Final Four this year. So there won’t be any partying in the streets of Lexington. Of course, making it to the Elite 8 is better than they’ve done in many years, so it’s not all bad. On Tuesday night, the UK women’s team lost (in the Elite 8 round as well) their bid for a first-ever spot in the Final Four. Perhaps next year …

Now that the basketball season is officially finished here in the Bluegrass, everyone’s attention can turn to horses. Keeneland’s spring meet starts tomorrow and runs through most of April. And the ever-popular Rolex KY Three-Day Event (here at the KY Horse Park, along with the WEG test events for dressage and jumping) is in just a few short weeks. The many tents are already going up.

And those WEG marathon obstacles that we’ve been trying to keep secret? The many thousands of people who will be in the park to watch the Rolex cross country will have their first full look at them, so I may be able to post some photos here as well that day. The Rolex KY Three-Day Event is April 22 through 25, so stay tuned!

About two weeks ago, the KHP’s first foal of the season was born here at the park.

In years past, the KHP’s small annual foal crop could be found in the Big Barn or in one or more of the neighboring paddocks. Last Friday, I walked over to the Big Barn, camera in hand, only to find a single horse in the barn and a sign out front declaring that renovations were on the way.  Apparently, the KHP’s Education Department (which handles the foaling and runs the “mare and foal” show for park visitors later in the spring) had moved.

This week, I found out where they’ve moved and headed to that barn yesterday afternoon. The barn was quiet when I got there in the late afternoon — the only sounds: the rustling of straw, the munching of hay, and the friendly greeting of a calico barn cat. I peered into a few of the stalls and, in one of the large ones, saw the new filly taking a nap in the straw.

I tried taking a few sleeping-foal photos, but they aren’t the best, what with the soothing (dark) barn interior and the odd camera angle from having to aim the camera between the stall railings. Here’s the best of the lot:

this sleeping Thoroughbred filly is the first of the foals born at the KHP this year

I wandered down the stall aisle, visited with the barn cat, and watched her investigate a few stalls.

the barn cat, making her rounds

Then, on my way out, I looked in on the filly one more time. And she started to stir from her nap, then got up for a snack. The big black blur at the end of the video is the mare’s dark bay nose investigating the camera.