Belmont Stakes 2008…Where You Can Piss like a Race Horse
9 June 2008
One Comment
We were supposed to make a trip to NYC for the Belmont Stakes and the chance to see Big Brown win the triple crown. My dissertation proposal kept me away, but it seems that it was a blessing in disguise. As if Big Brown’s last place finish wasn’t disappointing enough, this event had another damper, so to speak.
The excessive heat created a demand on water that the park was not ready to handle. At one point, the water had to be shut off and the pressure was lowered everywhere to conserve. This made for a mess of an event and some terrible conditions for fans. Female fans began using men’s restrooms. Some lines went more than 50 people deep or about 45 minutes long. It was reported that some male fans were relieving themselves in garbage cans, on clubhouse stair landings and in the manicured shrubbery outside the clubhouse.
When I go to an event like drag racing, Bass Master Fishing or NASCAR, I am prepared for this type of roughing it. But, horse racing? This is supposed to be a high class sport. If I am going to see people pissing in the bushes (or should I say shrubbery?), a gal needs to be prepared for these things.
This event sounds like a complete disappointment. Here is one time that I am glad that I stayed home with the comforts of my own thrown.
Belmont Stakes 08 was crazy! I thought about not going myself, but as a New Yorker who skipped last year’s Stakes and missed maybe the best stretch run in the history of the event, I could not in good conscience stay away. The bathrooms were crazy, and the lack of water in the toilets did not keep most of us from using them anyway, which resulted in a very intense odor inside the grandstand. I just stopped drinking altogether after the 6th race. I also positioned myself on the final turn, closest to the LIRR tracks so I could use the train bathroom ASAP. This turned out to be a good plan on multiple accounts–we all got to see Desormeaux pull him up!
Great blog, btw!
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