GC&S
It’s Saturday night. For many, here on my Island, this is one of the most important Saturday night: the GC&S race (Gold Cup & Saucer) will go, this evening. Definitely scaled down from other years, when that “two minute mile” set the tone for the whole week in the city.
A small confession here. I have never assisted at trackside. The sport of betting on a very limited field of very expensive horses with carts left me bewildered. Why so much hoopla about the driver, when the pony did all the work? Plus, I have better places to lose my money. 649, anyone?
However, (until 2020, which I hope is an exception), there was also a decent parade through the city center, with floats and marching bands and celebrities in open cars. Great fun on a Kodachrome budget. The parade, I have watched. Not this year, but before. OK, a lifetime ago. But I have watched the parade, and tried to identify the famous (they often had signs to assist people like me).
GC&S marked the end of summer. School would start, and we would trade our beach clothes for a sack filled with new books and scribblers and freshly sharpened pencils. We knew that the horse race led to more important things.
Still, let the record show. The race is very much an Island thing, although I suspect some of the horses found their way here from off the bridge. It brought enthusiastic people together, celebrating a throwback to a time when horsepower had nothing to do with what you kept under the hood of your car. They’ll race, tonight. Tomorrow, the headline will refer to the horse and jockey. And we’ll start preparing for winter.
