Day 23 - I Love the Smell of Keeneland in the Morning

7:00 am - Main Track at Keeneland Facility in Lexington

Sunrise at Keeneland Race Track - Lexington Kentucky

It’s always tough rolling out of the sack for an early morning rendezvous at  Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, but it’s always been more than  worth the effort. This morning was no exception; in fact, it may have been the most action ever for us.

For those that don’t know or haven’t been there, Keeneland is an awesome facility for those that have an equine bent. It's part race track, part stables, part training facility, and part sales facility for Thoroughbreds. At any given time there might be as many as 1100 Man O War wannabe's hanging there. The coolest thing is that you can go there for free and get up close and personal with the equines and their jockeys and trainers and the Keeneland staff. Of course, there are rules: 1) Not free or available on race days; 2) No touchy the horsies!

Horses, it seems, do their training early in the morning. We recall arriving one morning at 7:30 am when the weather was warm and...no horsies. All had trained hours earlier and were bathed and back in their cool stalls.

Today was special because it's racing month at Keeneland, but no races on Tuesday. The place is packed with equines and buzzing with early morning action. I don't know, but I suspect that because of the number of horses on the premises, that only those that were racing were allowed to train on the main track today. It also appeared that they had scheduled times to train and were queued up waiting their respective turns. This made it especially fun for Lizzy who loves getting up close and personal with the magnificent athletes.

Queued up and waiting...

Hey, dude...who said you could take my photo?

 Giddy-up!!

After their workouts it's bath time and, of course, these athletes are hungry. They eat somewhere around 20 lbs of hay, grass and grain in some combination each day. Add to that 6-10 gallons of water. Each has its own unique sound as it cruises the track at full gallop. Some grunt, others wheeze and some are almost silent. No matter what, your heart beats big-time as you watch them rip around the track.

Early Morning Workout Time

The track Sentinel

After watching the workouts, we went behind the scenes and saw them getting bathed and fed. Keeneland is a very special place. We much prefer the more intimate visits than to attend on race day.

Waiting for bath time...

Just hanging...

Keeneland Winners and their colors...