We had heard about this race from 4 Irish men that we met at a wine tasting event on the canal boat trip. They told us it was great fun, really not to be missed. So, we took the metro to the races, met at the closest Metro stop by free shuttle buses that took us directly to the the Longchamp Racing Course. Lots of Brits here for the racing festivities, and for the first time we were definitely under-dressed amongst the suits, ties, fascinators and fancy dresses - and those were our fellow shuttle riders! So you can imagine the dress of those arriving in the Rolls and Ferrarris.
Qatar sponsored the race so there was a Qatar tourism pavilion:
Mary only let me pose since we would never see any of these people again!
I might have even brushed up against Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser, the mother of the current Qatari emir and the second wife/public consort of the former emir who abdicated in favor of his son last year. Actually it was her security guards who were hustling me out of the way as she left the Qatari tourism pavilion.
According to the race program, this race "is the race every owner, breeder, trainer and jockey dreams of winning. ... The Arc is the richest turf race on earth with prize money topping a record 5 million Euros." It was great people watching and quite unlike anything we had experienced. We stayed a couple of hours to people watch, saw two races (which mostly meant watched the giant screens they had set up in the track's interior), and then headed to Musee Marmottan Monet. Read later that Treve, the filly who won last year, took top honors again (first time since 1977/78 for a repeat winner).
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment