Day Twelve: Fourth of July

Saturday, the Fourth of July, was even more nuts
I arrived at 1:30pm and immediately got to cutting up more Braves entry forms since I figured we'd need even more. When Molly came, we waited around until someone got to the Jockeys' Room and was able to give us the changes to post online.
Afterward, Darrell told me I had to write three stories that night while Molly escorted Miss Teen Virginia around once again. The first story, which was simply on the different festivities going on during the Virginia Derby, was really easy to do and I got it done early. The second, an inside look at all the potential horses running in the VA Derby, was also easy and interesting. It was the big news on the top floor, too, with everyone wanting to know who would possibly be running. The top three finishers of the Turf Cup should be returning as well as Nicanor, the full brother to Barbaro, which is exactly what Darrell has been wanting all year. There should be a huge crowd coming out and a lot of money bet on Nicanor only for the fact that he's Barbaro's full brother.
Again, Molly was off escorting while I manned the Press Box, and I had a pretty laid back day as I watched the races with the Equibase guys and a friend they had brought. He was really great to talk to and actually had Rachel Alexandra tattooed on his arm -- a total racetracker.
For the 7th race, I had to be down at the winners' circle again to help the singer out before she sang her version of the ball game song and to instruct the jockeys on the t-shirt toss. That went much more smoothly than the night before.
For the eighth race, the singer was singing God Bless America and then had to draw a winner for the trip to Georgia. I was on the JumboTron for the drawing and a couple Sweet Briar girls saw me and practically blew up my phone with the 'what on earth are you doing on TV?!''s.
I went back to the Press Box for the ninth race. Molly took some friends there to watch a race since there was nothing to do, and I told Keith, one of the Equibase guys, that I was going to learn his job and take over the top floor. He showed me how to do his job and he'll hopefully be teaching me every chance I get; he's the main one at this internship who's actually teaching me about the track. He's a chart caller, so he makes up the official charts for Equibase. He and Bill go back and forth taking down, at every racing pole, the distance that each horse is from the lead (they essentially do their own race call to one another to listen to). It's more difficult than it looks but he said that, once I get the chart taking down, calling the race is easy. I'm looking forward to my next day at work because he's going to give me a few charts to try on my own.
After that, I went to get the flyers to pass out from the previous night from the Program Office. No one knew what I was talking about but we finally found them. Molly and I went back to passing them out at the main gates until we realized that we were the only ones down there, so I headed back to the Press Box before fireworks were over to write a story on the Brookmeade Stakes, and Molly stayed after for about five minutes before coming back up. Before long, she called Darrell to ask him a question and he started yelling about us not being down there. We had no idea why the Guest Services people were sitting around doing nothing, but apparently we were supposed to be doing their jobs that night. We passed out flyers for another hour or so, with me encountering a drunk man offering me money to go home with him, before we'd both had enough (Molly with Darrell, me with drunk guys). I went back up and finished my story, sending it to the media as Molly sent out results.
We were able to clock out at 11:30pm but traffic didn't clear out until an hour later. I finally got home at around 2:30am and again had a long, hard sleep.

I also noticed in a print version of the Blood Horse I received in the mail that Nick Hahn was able to use some of the quotes I got him for his article. Small victories.

10 hours.