Fresnay Race 2005

The Big Race of the Year!

Desney and I left around 09:00 and traffic was fine. We were about 4 km from Deauville at 11:00. However it then took us 45 minutes to go 4 km and we arrived at the race track just before 12:00.

Almost everyone was already there and we dropped off the stuff we had brought with us to go to Normandy. The London crowd had arrived by plane just before our arrival and we started drinking and enjoying ourselves practically immediately. The tent layout was beautiful as always and the meal was amazingly copious and delicious as always. As always (again) we were still eating by the first race at 14:15. We all had a great time... until...

The Fresnay Race

Our Divine Proporions, unbeaten in her entire 9-race career, going up against colts for the first time was the by-far favourite. Odds were under 2-1 on her and a place bet was practically worthless. Only 6 horses running...

We ran up to the roof terrace to watch the race, which is our favourite place to watch from, and although I yelled and screamed my head off (as always)... she came in ... fourth.

;-(

Needless to say the atmosphere was a bit more subdued from this point forward. Although we continued to eat and drink and enjoy each other's company it was not the same...

We had a great time, ate and drank extremely well and greeted everyone who is anyone before finally leaving at around 19:00. Our hotel was not far and we passed out immediately upon checkin.

At about 20:30 we decided to go to the beach for a walk. We strolled along the boardwalk for a while, looking at the sun setting on the beach on one side and the enticing casinos on the other side. After having lost quite, quite, quite an amount of money at the races the casino were much less appealing that normal.

We then went in to the centre of Deauville for a very light dinner in a very touristy restaurant and worried about being sick when we got back to the hotel.

We slept extremely well after the exhausing day and we were back on the road home by a little after 08:00. No traffic on the road whatsoever, stopped off at an autoroute restaurant for a quick breakfast, and we were home by 10:15.

Now... back to work!