Types of Races/Bob Bull Update

I have recently posted some horse racing terms that you may see in upcoming posts on Bob Bull. Now I would like to shine some light on some different types of races that are run by these magnificent animals.

• Allowance Race: A race which has eligibility conditions to determine the horses that may enter and is not a claimer.


• Claiming Race: A race in which any horse may be purchased at a predetermined price.


• Handicap Race: A race in which weights have been assigned by the racing secretary after evaluating entrant's past races.


• Maiden Race: A race for horses which have never won a race.


• Stakes Race: Highest class of race, reserved for the best horses. Owners have to pay an entry fee or "stake" for these races.


• Derby: Stakes race for three year olds.

In horse racing they will run on one of two surfaces, dirt or turf. If it happens to rain the day of a race you will hear terms like sloppy or soft or yielding and you may see a lot of horses scratched from the race. Some horses can't run in the mud or wet surfaces, they are too slow and of coarse safety becomes an issue. If it is a beautiful dry day you will hear terms like Fast (dirt) or Firm (turf).

Bob Bull update:

Bob has adjusted just fine into his new (old) home and has starting training to run in April. He has put on weight and is around 1000 lbs. Tom says he seems to be very happy he is home and is still pretty "goofy". I will explain more of this in the next few days. I am currently working on Bob Bulls and Toms wonderful story of how Bob ended up back running with Tom.

I will be posting this story in the next few days. Please stay tuned. It is a wonderful story! Unfortunately it will be minus pictures but we are working on that right now. It's a little hard when we are 1500 miles away from each other :) but the pictures are coming!

Proud Moment

Last week Thomas starting asking me how to "make letters". He has been able to say the letters in his name for a while now, so I new it was only time but I'm thinking "you are nuts, your not even 4 yet". Well he kept asking me so I wrote the letters out in his name nice and big and showed him how to trace them. He started tracing and then lost interest and that is the last I heard of it....until today.

He was drawing and then he says "Mommy is my name right" So I go over and was expecting to see a bunch of squiggly lines and this is what I found

How cool is that! What a proud and sad moment all in one. Proud because he is growing and learning and sad because he is growing and learning.