The Korea Cup — Part 2

[Wandering Eyes]

I landed in Seoul late afternoon local time, but my body told me it was around three in the morning. I was met at the airport and driven to the Ambassador Ibis Hotel in downtown. I was going to stay there five nights, this was where the grooms and riders and assistants were staying. When Jack arrived–with Mom–we were all going to check into the Intercontinental, one of Seoul’s premier hotels, all courtesy of the Korea Racing Authority. But that was five days in the future, and It only took one evening for my trip to South Korea to become surreal.

I checked in, dumped my belongings, went back down to the lobby, exited the hotel to grab a bottle of water, and walked into an old face from Newmarket. He introduced me to another old face from Newmarket. Water turned to beer. And nothing has been normal since.

We sat outside the hotel in a small seating area. We drank cans of beer, caught up on scandals and gossip from back home, and then we went and dined at KFC. In five years living in Kentucky, I have never felt compelled to enter a KFC. But that first night in Seoul I sat with Steve and Alan from Newmarket eating Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Steve has never been to the States, doesn’t know much about it. But he has been to Asia before, worked in Hong Kong for three years exercizing horses. An Irish guy he worked with there went to the states, he said. He wondered if I might know him? I tried to explain to him that the USA is huge, that you don’t just bump into someone. It turned out that I spent last winter sharing a house with his friend, down in Florida.

The next day it was arranged for me and Ben Correas–son of Argentinian trainer Ignacio to go pick up our horses. Correas and McPeek share one of Keeneland’s permanent training barns, so I knew Ben. We were picked up from the hotel and taken to the airport. Things went slowly, but smoothly. I thought Harvey looked pretty pleased to see me, but it’s hard to be sure with a horse–and to be honest, he tends to look pretty pleased to see anyone who is prepared to clean his stall and make his dinner.

It was a one-hour van ride back to the track. Once there I bathed him, walked him for a while, settled him in his stall, took his temperature, which is important–shipping fever is a serious issue, and can be, in rare instances, deadly. He was fine. I arranged for him to get some IV fluids to help hydrate him quickly and gave him his dinner.

Back at the hotel, the French contingent showed up. They have a runner in the Korea Sprint, the other international race that takes place Sunday. Their exercise rider was Italian. I have no idea how, but 20 minutes later I was face-timing with Tony “Chicken” Polli from Sardinia–who years ago was apprenticed to me in Newmarket, and now worked in the same stable–in France, as this Italian guy, Guiseppe. I was getting a bit disorientated. It was the drink, the body clock out, the strange sights and smells, the fading light. I went to bed.

The next afternoon Juliette, who is over with the Tom Amoss team, asked me if I had seen the video Jack posted on Instagram. I don’t use Instagram. She showed me a video of Jack on one knee, in a restaurant, proposing to a girl, who is obviously saying yes. I knew Jack was seeing a girl down in Henderson while he was riding at Ellis Park, but I thought they had just been on a few dates. I had never met her, neither had Vicky–as far as I knew anyway. I didn’t say much, just pondered it a bit and finished looking after the horse.

In the cab on the way back to the hotel with Ben I ask him to look up Jack’s Instagram page. He does, and nearly jumps through the cab roof. Suddenly I realize that I must be underreacting, so I start going crazy too. “But Jack’s normally so sensible!?” Ben kept crying. We couldn’t work it out.

We get back to the hotel. I sprint across the road and pick up a bottle of Absolut. Steve, Alan, and Guiseppe are there. A stewards enquiry is held. It goes on a long time. It was too late to call Jack or Vicky, I would just have to wait till morning. After a few more drinks my patience ran out. I started texting the hell out of him.

A free dessert. That’s what they got, him and the girl. A free dessert, for making a spoof engagement video. Very funny.

“What is the matter with you?!” was his reply. I still don’t know.

Traffic and food. These are problems in Seoul. It is a city of 10 million people, expect traffic. But it is really heavy sometimes. Our taxi ride twice daily to and from the racetrack is an ordeal. Two hours a day minimum in a taxi. Sometimes one leg can take the best part of an hour. In fact it is maybe wrong to even call it a taxi ride. It feels more like getting into the taxi waiting for us outside the track, then sitting there, and waiting until tectonic drift has brought our hotel to within walking distance, and then getting back out again.

I have been here five days now. My dinners have been: KFC, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Papa John’s, McDonalds. I want to eat the local cuisine, I have to eat the local cuisine in order to write about it. But it is terrifying looking, and the smell of the food in the air is strong and pungent and just doesn’t smell like any food I have known. I have never thought of myself as a fussy eater, I can eat the hottest curry known to man. But when you see the pictures of food on the menus, my courage leaves me. I have no idea what they are, but one looked like say, eyeball in rich blood stew. Another looked like one of those shots you get from an internal surgical camera.

So, I get my Starbucks at lunchtime, and eat junk food in the evening, and drink an Absolut in the night. And marvel at the world. I talk about it sometimes with Harvey when I am giving him his afternoon constitutional. How we have flown a third of the way around the world, and we are both eating and drinking the same as we would at home. That it is just the proportions that change. That here in Seoul there is more Korean food and less McDonalds, while back in Lexington there is more McDonalds and less Korean food. But in both places it is all available. All the cuisines, everywhere. That’s a good thing, blending is good, mixing. It has been good to come here, to mix with other people, other cultures.

To experience their city, and to look at their food.

 

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