To the races!

This weekend Ben took me to Cheltenham to see the horse races, I've never been to a horse race in the states or elsewhere, so it was a great experience!

Ben's boss and his wife live in Cheltenham, just a short walk from the course, so we met at their house first for champagne and breakfast, then headed over.

Here is Ben, Paul and his wife Ruth:

Ben and I with the hills of Cheltenham in the background:

As you can see I wore my riding boots for the occasion ;)

There were so many people attending the races!  Basically the point in attending is to drink beer and place bets, let's just say I'm better at drinking beer than I am at betting on horses!  We placed our first bet of the day and I picked Captain Chris to win, here I am eagerly anticipating his win:

 unfortunately, here he is coming in second:

although the view of the race course from the stands was quite impressive:

they didn't allow beer in the stands and that's just not acceptable, so we headed down to ground level:

and to an outside bar where we could watch the races AND drink beer, you know I was happy about that!

and yes, that is Guinness we're drinking, yum!

Ruth took some shots of the stands for me:

and I just had to include one of her as well, looking quite demure ;)

here's Ben wearing Ruth's hat, which is just a tiny bit too small for him:

By the end of the day Ben and I had lost every single race we bet on, but we were still quite happy and full of beer!  Here is a shot of the entire Cheltenham race group:

we all had such a great time at the races and I can't wait to go back, even if I don't place a single bet, which would probably be a good thing ;)