{"id":3758,"date":"2005-08-30T18:32:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-30T18:32:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2019-08-29T16:49:24","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T16:49:24","slug":"3758","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jessicaeblack.org\/everythingelse\/2005\/08\/30\/3758\/","title":{"rendered":"A visit to the racetrack"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I decided to visit the racetrack, since I won\u2019t have much time to do so after September first. I should explain that Madrid\u2019s track, Hip\u00f3dromo de la Zarzuela, closed nearly nine years ago and is only just due to reopen this fall, on October 23rd<\/a>. Though from what I saw this morning, they are far from opening. The new company (Hip\u00f3dromo de la Zarzuela, S.A.<\/a>) that bought the rights to exploit the track\u2014it\u2019s a national monument under the aegis of Spain\u2019s Patrimonio Nacional<\/a>\u2014has been renovating the tracks and grounds. I have heard mixed opinions on the result of their labors, but I haven\u2019t been close enough myself to judge, and today they didn\u2019t let me in.<\/p>\n

There were three or four guards at the gate, and when I said I\u2019d come to see an old friend and trainer, two men argued a bit then let me through. They sent me the wrong way, and when I drove the right way to get across the grounds to where the few trainers who have horses here were stabled, a jeep sped after me and pulled me over. In the car was the pair of arguing idiots, telling me I couldn\u2019t drive to the stalls, they\u2019d understood me to say I wanted to visit the trainer\u2019s house, I had to go back and call someone to meet me at the gate, etc etc. I figured that the one in favor of letting me in had lost the argument to the one who perceived me as a potential terrorist or spy.<\/p>\n

The trainer does have an old house there, but I knew no one would be in it during morning gallops. I had only a few numbers of contacts in my cell phone, though there were undoubtedly a dozen people I knew well at the track. Unsurprisingly no one answered, and the fools at the gate didn\u2019t want to let me use their phone to call. Anyway I was too mad to talk to them without making a scene, and I had an appointment within half an hour so I left. Maybe I should have made the scene, or shown them an old amateur\u2019s license, or waited till an acquaintance drove out, or demanded to speak to the manager of racing, with whom I am well acquainted. But I left and thought that even if I win the lottery and can therefore afford to have racehorses again, I won\u2019t stable even one there.<\/p>\n

Besides, I don\u2019t like the way they\u2019re ripping the place up. The old track had had an endearing charm about its European stable yards, large rusty round pens, long bridle paths and trails. Much of this was destroyed by the last company that controlled the track, called at the time Hip\u00f3dromo de Madrid and used as a sort of private resort by its exploiter, the now dead Enrique Sarasola. Yes the same one who owned Helissio<\/a>, the 1996 Arc du Triomphe<\/a> winner several years back. Sarasola and Co took over a failing business and made it worse, destroying several exercise tracks, changing the meeting programs to suit themselves, failing to pay prizes, running unwanted people off with their own private mafia\u2014yes I saw this with my own eyes. Not to mention closing the old canteen and replacing it with a shiny soulless bar under the Grandstand. I remember thinking then, around 1993, that the loss of the Cantina was the first step to ugly modernization, shedrows and mile-long ovals.<\/p>\n

Hip\u00f3dromo de la Zarzuela, S.A. has respected the tracks as far as I can tell. The grass track, nearly 9 furlongs with chutes for a straight 5 furlongs and a one-curve 9 furlong race, is a bit narrower in places, or so I\u2019ve been told. But there was plenty of width, I\u2019ve raced with 21 horses and still not used half the track. And it certainly needed help. It had always been hilly, with a long downhill run from the 9 furlong gate to the start of the curve, then uphill all the stretch, and the last season, when no money was being spent on maintenance, the top of the stretch was a morass of mud and holes, where jabali<\/a> had rooted up the grass every morning all fall. The dirt track on the inside (around 1500m) was hard as a rock on the inside and deep sand in the middle, except when they plowed the sand to the poles and it was the other way around. It has supposedly been replaced by a smooth state of the art dirt track.<\/p>\n

I do wish I had time to gallop, if only to try out the new tracks. I wonder what they\u2019ve done to the training track, a hilly, slightly hourglass shaped affair that winds through the wood at the back of the grounds. I wonder if they\u2019ve to banish to jabali for good. Of course I would <\/em>stable horses there again, if convenient enough:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I decided to visit the racetrack, since I won\u2019t have much time to do so after September first. I should explain that Madrid\u2019s track, Hip\u00f3dromo de la Zarzuela, closed nearly nine years ago and is only just due to reopen this fall, on October 23rd. Though from what I saw this morning, they… Read More »A visit to the racetrack<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,38],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-3758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backgound","category-horses","tag-hipodromo-de-la-zarzuela"],"yoast_head":"\nA visit to the racetrack : Wild Woman's World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jessicaeblack.org\/everythingelse\/2005\/08\/30\/3758\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A visit to the racetrack : Wild Woman's World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This morning I decided to visit the racetrack, since I won\u2019t have much time to do so after September first. 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