Sunday 15 April 2012

Village Life - Owning a Winning Racehorse

Yesterday was a big day for horse racing in Britain.  No, I'm not talking about what happened somewhere called Aintree but what happened here in our little village - where the local pub (the Pack Horse) ran a Race Night.  I ended up owning a racehorse - and it won its race.  |Prrr.

Village life is very different from living in London (where I used to live with my humans) or other big cities.  In the village, your neighbours talk to you (and about you!).  In the big city, you can search out someone with interests to match yours.  In the village, if you are sensible, you just get involved in what is happening.  And maybe - after 5 or 6 years - they get used to you too.  They may even tolerate one family in the community having a toy cat who writes a Blog!

Our village is very small.  There is no shop; no Post Office, no school.  There is a pub but business is hard for all rural pubs these days.  The current landlord of the pub is a nice local man who has given good service so my humans want to support him and help him make a success of the business (this is where it gets a little difficult because they talk about the quality of the food and drink and I don't really understand that because I'm a toy).

So the point is that my humans are not really keen horse racing or betting people but they went to the Race Night because there would be nice neighbours there and to support the village.  It turned out there were eight races and people were offered the chance to be named "owner" of each of the horses as well as to bet on them. All the horses had funny fictitious names (like "Nearly Fell, by Eileen Dover").  In the Fifth Race one was called "Pinocchio by Wooden Lie".  Nobody had yet "bought" him and my humans decided to give the money to name me as owner.  The horse ran as "No.2".

The evening got under way and the humans apparently had fun (no, I wasn't actually there!).  As it happens, the horse in position "No. 2" won in both the third and forth races.  My humans tried to console themselves that one race should not affect the result of the next but the chances for "Pinocchio" did not look good.  Well, I don't need to waste time - "No. 2" did win three races in a row.  The landlord called up the owner and Mikki went up representing me to collect my prize.  Here I am with it in the picture.

I'm very pleased with my prize - and even more proud that I can call myself the owner of a winning racehorse.  I don't think I'll be drinking any of my prize.  On balance, I'm glad my humans didn't act on their friend's suggestion to set up the picture with a  drinking straw from the bottle to my mouth.

I don't even think the humans drink much Martini.  It'll have to wait until they find another way of taking part in village life - by inviting the neighbours round for a party!

And what about the big horse race yesterday and the poor horses who died?  What do you expect me to think?  Moral dilemmas are for humans.  Life for toys is more simple.  Give me a cuddle.

Prrrr.

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