2009 Foxfield Spring Races

The weather treated the thousands of party-goers in the infield pretty well — it was 90+ degrees and sunny. The racing was fun and also sad when a horse had to be put down for breaking his leg. Toughkenamon jockeyed by Carl Rafter, pictured above on the second of three laps of his race, had his trail leg hit the timbers on the final jump of the race. It was a hard thing to watch and photograph. Needless to say, the rest of the day was a lot of fun — people in crazy outfits, watching students get drunk at 10AM in the morning and lots of beautiful horses (including the very successful Good Night Shirt).

Estimates were that 23,500 fans attended the races. There were new alcohol rules in place designed to limit the amount of consumption — namely the size of coolers were restricted, glass bottles prohibited, and random ID checks throughout the day replaced over 21 bracelets. From what I observed, that didn’t really have much of an effect on the party — people got drunk, some people got way too drunk, some people did stupid things and got arrested. Seems to happen every year.

2009 Foxfield Spring Races – Images by Jason O. Watson