Philly Park Local Trip is All Day Fun By Jackie Mitchell '02

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Hi! We just got home a couple of hours ago from the Philly Park local trip, and I thought that you might like to know how it went.

We met Jenny Ornsteen, Philly Park Director of Public Relations, outside the gate to the backside and she told us stories about her life in racing and how she used to be an outrider and exercise rider. After that, we watched the morning workouts for about 45 minutes.

It was soooo much more quiet than Santa Anita, considering that we were the only people there! Jenny introduced us to Lisa McKee, who was our "tour guide". A lot of the exercise boys and girls stopped their horses and said hello to us, and the horses, according to Lisa, were NOT used to people being around in the morning by the grandstand, so THEY were a little weirded out about seven teenage girls snapping photos!

Lisa then brought us to Bob Seeger's barn, where we walked through the shedrow and met all the horses. That, of course, was one of my fav parts.....ANYTHING that has to do with giving horses pats and kisses is!

Later we went to the Administration Offices, where we saw the steward's office and the racing office where they were taking entries, drawing for post positions, etc. It was really neat to see everyone and how everything works.

Next, we went up to the jock's room, and visited the "colors room". There aren't as many silks as at Santa Anita, but it was still cool. Jockey Victor Molina came out and talked to us for a little while, and I was so shocked when he said that he'd ridden Slew o' Gold before!

We met the track announcer, Dick, who also does everything on T.V. He decided to put us on T.V! So we all squeezed in, and he introduced KTTC, and Nikki Sherman explained about it, while I felt really short standing next to him (he's a tall guy!). So it was sort of funny when we went back into the simulcast area and one of the older men said, "You girls looked good on T.V just now!". It was very amusing.

We were then treated to a "meal ticket" worth $15 for each of us, which meant we could eat almost anything! So after we ate, of course we took rolls and rolls of pictures of the horses, begged jockeys for autographs, and got some souvenir goggles! Not to mention a winners circle photo for the entire group with the winning jockey after the fifth race.

So to end the day, Sandy won the Sprint (Say Florida Sandy), and we all went home happy and completely satisfied with our day at the races.