Racing Goats

Nothing in life prepares you to witness an otherwise perfectly normal middle aged man, clad in a flowering pink dress, drunk beyond recognition, stooping down to look a goat earnestly in the eye, then proceeding to give the poor animal a pep talk before it is thrown unawares into a race with a half dozen equally confounded four legged creatures.

The Royal Ascot Goat Race, held on Lake Victoria, has the feel of a colonial era golf tournament cross-pollinated with a mad carnival fueled by bizarre costumes and crates upon crates of free champagne. A strange evening it was.