Stay Out of the Water!!!

While we were at a racetrack in Minnesota, there was very heavy rain and a major flood. Some of the barns were on hills, and some were in low areas in 3 to 4 feet of water. Dumpsters were floating down the roads between barns. One very quick thinking lady had saved the computer rooms in the basement of the grandstand by shoving huge cartons of toilet paper and paper towels in the hallway to soak up the floodwaters.

We got to the track at 5 A.M. and had to walk across the bumpers of trucks parked outside the security gates to get through the water to get to the barn and feed horses. We then took the boys to the track kitchen for breakfast and to assess the situation - not a good training day for sure. We told the boys to stay out of the water. They could play in the recreation room.

We were enjoying an extra cup of coffee since there was no reason to hurry that morning, when another trainer walked up and mentioned he had just seen the boys in the parking lot. WHAT? We looked out the window and there they were --- rafting through the parking lot on a barn door that had blown off in the storm, using brooms for paddles. The fact that the water they had waded through had been saturated with horse manure and who knows what else didn't phase them - they might as well have been on the Mississippi with Tom and Huck.

After a proper lecture, I sent Dad and the boys to the public showers and had them hosed off, clothes and all, for the ride back to our apartment and some clean dry clothes.