Harness Racing

Jill's Journal: Our girls think there’s nothing quite so magical in all the world as horses. Of course, I quite agree, so this delights me to no end. And Rob, bless his heart, had probably never given horses a second thought until he met me, but now goes to the ends of the earth (which included moving to Kentucky!) to indulge us all.

We can teach our girls about Thoroughbred racing until we run out of breath, but lately they’ve gotten interested in trotters and pacers too and I confess to knowing only a little about that sport, as it never captured me quite like Thoroughbred racing. It’s been at least a dozen years since I’ve even been to a harness track. But lately, Erika especially has been asking to go.

Today, there just happened to be live racing at historic Bangor Raceway, which has had several names over the years but has been in that spot since 1883. This is a tiny track with tiny purses, hardly high-quality racing, but it's very quaint and still such fun. Rob took a late lunch to go with us and we had a ball, all rooting home the girls’ picks together. The girls cheered with wild enthusiasm -- just good, clean fun.

On the last race we watched, Rob put a win bet down for each of the girls and promised them they could keep any winnings. Six-year-old Erika especially was devastated when her horse failed to win (as she hoped to add to her pony fund), which prompted a lovely lecture about how you can’t win everything in life and need to be a good sport, win or lose. Plus, if there’s eight horses in a field and only one winner, how many don’t win? Sigh…no one said this parenting gig was going to be easy.

To drive the point home, I gave her a school assignment to write about winning. This is what she came up with, amid much grumbling and dirty looks thrown my way: “I love to win. I don’t know why I love to win. I don’t know why I don’t love to lose. Losing is no fun. Winning is. I need to be a good sport.”

That cracked me up! At least the “good sport” part seemed to get through. :)