THE KIMBERLY CUP

July 31, 2010 Saturday

Okay, we acted like tourists this afternoon. We were at the library with the Family History exhibit in the morning. Orson left for a while and when down to the Courthouse Market to hand out flyers about the exhibit. In 3 hours time (all the library’s open on Saturday), we were able have good conversations with 13 people. There are all kinds of folks involved in Family History at different levels. We have 6 people so far signed up to be part of a Family History discussion group.
Broome has a very active turf club, and this is the season for its horse races. They’ve been going on almost every weekend since we arrived up here. The track is out on the way to the locals’ end of Cable Beach. It’s a huge track—1600 meters. There’s a grandstand, food vendors, etc. They’ve made it quite the dress-up affair for the women. Stores advertise, “Get your race dresses here.” Each week the local paper has an article about who won the “Best Dressed” contest as well as great write-ups on the races.
They run probably 5 or 6 races each Saturday starting at 1 pm. We didn’t get out there until 3 pm. We envisioned entrance to the formal part of the park being pretty expensive, so we drove around and were able to park right up against the fence by the track about 300 meters from the finish line. The first race we saw was a 1300 meter race. When we got out of the car, there were a couple of other ladies just down from us doing it the “cheap” way too. There were 6 or so horses in the race, and it was cool to have them go thundering by so close to us. Just a chain link fence separated us from them.
The 2nd race was announced as “The Kimberley Cup.” The purse for this one must have been bigger because there were 10 horses in this race. As they began to get ready for it, a tractor pulled the starting gate around to RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. We chatted with the workers as they got everything ready. Several more people showed up for the “cheap seats” next to us. The horses paraded in front of the grandstand and then came down to the gate. Talk about beautiful horses—it was hard to take it all in in the short time they spent in front of us before they were led into the starting gate. Two of them had to be pushed a little to get the small gates behind them closed. As soon as that was done, a quick check was made to ensure that everyone was okay on the other end of the horses, and the gates were opened. It was amazing how they all charged out. The starting gate was quickly pulled into the grassy area in the middle and the fence piece put back up. As they came past us again, a beautiful sorrel with a red saddle blanket and a jockey in black and white checks was in the lead. But then a couple of other horses burst out trying to overtake the leader in the last 300 meters of the race. The sorrel won anyway.
In the MTC, we were told not to become full-time tourists, but that we should take advantage of where we were to see the sights. The horse race was definitely one of them, especially since we weren’t able to take in the Pioneer Days Rodeo this year! We found out that admission to the Turf Park was only $10.00 each. We decided where we were worked just fine and we didn’t have to put up with people smoking and drinking around us! It was great.