On a dreary May 8th, General Charley returned to action at Arlington Park and

Wired the Field!

That's right, our 8 yr old gelding who has been in a slump since November of last year, returned triumpantly into the Winners Circle having dispatched a full field of 11 competitors in a 25,000 claiming race on the turf at a mile.

It was a bit of an odd day as Jean, Laurie, Kathy & Nancy Rabbit were not at the race as they were in The Big Apple taking my mother on a combination 75th Birthday and Mother's day trip.

However, new Rabbits had arrived from the Phillipines, of all places, and watched their 1st horse race. These new rabbits were the son and grandchildren of our own Vicki Rabbit (wife of Jeff) and they had just flown to the US in time for Jeff to take them to Arlington Park to meet our General Charley. Welcome to America!

Back in New York, the girls had found a pub in Manhattan that had HRTV on their cable package and they enticed the Bartender to turn the main TV's to Charley's race. Then together with their fellow New Yorkers, they all cheered Charley on to victory.

Eddie Perez rode Charley masterfully, breaking him out of the 1 hole and keeping him on the fence in front. Under Eddie's steady hold, they set rather fast fractions of 24.2 and 48 for the half which scared us as they were posted. But turning for home you could see Eddie still had Charley in a choke hold and at the head of the stretch Eddie finally let him go and Charley sprinted clear to the wire!

As usual we had over 50 people in the Winners Circle picture and as usual we had to be ushered out of the Winners Circle as we were taking too long after the photo. But it was great and a tremendous kick-off to our summer at Arlington.

Picture above left is of Charley pounding down the stretch with picture upper right of Eddie Perez giving thanks for the victory. All the way on the bottom is the Winners Circle photo.

Thanks to Southern Trainer Neil Pessin for Delivering Charley to Arlington in great shape.

Thanks to Northern Trainer Chris Block for delivering our first win of the year.

But most importantly...

Thanks to Charley for another great thrill!