“You just have to be real careful,” he said. While Hedrick said there’s not much difference between feeding and caring for a zebra versus a horse, the former retains a wilder nature. Trainer Aryn Hedrick was “born and raised” around exotic animals thanks to his grandparents’ involvement with a circus and his father’s days as a rodeo clown. Remington Park’s exotic racers come from Hedrick’s Exotic Animal Farm outside of Hutchinson, Kan. ‘I love the ostriches’ Exotic animal trainer Aryn Hedrick poses next to the holding pen for his ostriches, camels and zebras Sunday during Extreme Racing at Remington Park in OKC. “No matter how much you know - or how much you think you know - there’s still half of it (that) you better have some racing luck on your side, too,” Day said, just before calling the race captured above in video. Because horse racing mixes the unpredictability of an animal with the fallibility of a human, developing a sure-fire technique for picking winners remains elusive. “People will go, ‘Oh, do you remember that race?’ And I’m like, ‘No, not really,’ because if I remembered every one of ’em I’d never get any of the names right.”ĭespite this race-related amnesia, Day understands the ins and outs of selecting winning horses, adding the caveat that any given race contains several variables that can confound even the most well-researched strategy. “You only have about five minutes to memorize the ‘players’,” Day said, as opposed to football or baseball games that last several hours. As one might imagine, the real challenge of calling horse races lies in memorizing all the names for one race, then forgetting them, and repeating the process for the very next race. An avid fan of horseracing since childhood, the former sports-radio color man began announcing Remington Park contests full-time in 2004. Ohio native Dale Day calls the races from a glass-lined booth perched high above the track. Even if onlookers could formally wager some bucks on their favorite camel, it would take more than a little luck to come out on top. “At the end of the year, it’s all divided up amongst all these charities.” Half skill, half luckĪside from friendly wagers among the crowd, there’s no betting on exotic animals during Extreme Racing Day. “So all that money just goes into this big fund for, including a golf tournament that we do later on in the year,” said Lair. The racetrack also partners with the various charities to provide T-shirts that each organization can sell, and the food trucks present at the event donate 15 percent of their take to Remington’s charity fund. In each exotic race, Remington Park contributes $1,000 to the charity that sponsored the winning animal, officials said. Miniature donkey raceīut beyond offering a family-friendly Sunday outing, the wacky competition boasts a charitable aspect, allowing an opportunity for Remington to give back to more than a dozen nonprofits in the community. The event featured free entry and parking. “We think people are looking for an outside event, out in the weather, where they can bring their families, bring their kids, and not spend a lot of money.” “We were totally amazed at the attendance,” Lair said.
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