Amongst the giant mountains with tiny purses and a bulging pocket.

 At first glance, the beauty of the mountains and the ocean which sit adjacent to Hastings racecourse just takes your breath away.

You naturally pause from whatever you were doing and what you were about to do and just stare.  It is breathtaking if you are seeing this for the first time.

You don't need to know what is going on in the horse racing world you just need to take this all in at least once and then return to have your kids cheer for a horse they like or a jockey you have made them familiar with.  They were kids running around with hot dogs drooping from the buns, folk music playing live in the background for those who sipped their cold beverages, and an ice cream line that caught the interest of more adults than I expected to see.

More people on the grounds than in the stands wasn't what I expected to see.

Somehow the numbers have shown that more people are watching the races at home or online because, in today's world, it just makes sense.

Between races, I watched as a flock of birds chased an eagle or perhaps it could have been an eagle teaching its fleet to fly.  Crows are everywhere in this city just like robins are in the city where I reside.  This was fascinating to me as I don't openly see eagles soaring by in the parts where I live or crows so plentiful.  

This is Vancouver, the most western area of Canada.

Many races have small fields but fans are still active just like the other race tracks I have visited.  I saw groups of young males separated by tables of beer positioned in ice-cold buckets and they were all very vocal as if they were celebrating an event.  They couldn't have been just at the races like that, especially in today's world of online activity?

Hastings is a small track and because of its size as explained to me, the purses are naturally smaller.  The jockeys are a lot easier to speak with especially if you have Mike Pounder making some arrangements for you with them.  Mike Pounder is a jockey Agent with many years of knowledge and experience around tracks out west.  He started out in the racehorse world by pursuing a career as a jockey but decided to become a professional exercise rider due to weight issues and the struggle to keep the weight down.  Mike Pounder has a fascinating story to tell and he explained to me that everything has to be worked for and nothing is given to you based on his experience and trying to break into the game of horse racing.

At Hastings, I witnessed fans lined up against the rail on the stretch drive with their cell phones out to see if jockey Amadeo Perez would win all seven races on the day's card.  It was a spectacular sight and I was just lucky enough to be there at that time.  

Amadeo Perez pauses for a photo.

Unfortunately for those fans, he came up a bit short and only managed to win six races from the seven-race card.

derek.barntrack@gmail.com