Celebrating a busy & beautiful

Memorial Day

we had a Picnic at Arlington Park in the morning to see Salt Syn breeze and then went to sister Nancy's home for an afternoon picnic to celebrate the birthdays of her 2 sons Ryan & Tyler, along with our Brad!

Whew what a day!  at 7:30 AM we all met at Arlington Park to see Red Rabbit Racing's star Mare, Salt Syn do a 4 furlong breeze.  A breeze is a timed, published workout that is needed to get our star tuned up and fit for her next race.  She turned the 4 furlongs in a Maw Johnson girdle rippling time of 48.6 seconds - which earned Jean's friend Debbie the $9.00 pool we collected for guessing the closest time.  Trainer Chris Block and son Bryan were manning the stop watches as Salt bolted down the stretch with plenty of encouragement from the Johnson contingent.

Family Patriarch Robert Arthur Johnson was present having come with son and founding Red Rabbit Racing partner, Jeff Rabbit.  Partners Jean and Rick Rabbit were in full throat as well urging Salt down the stretch.  Alas, Sr. Partner Peggy was unable to make the journey up to AP - but she was in there in spirit. 

Picture upper right is of Salt leaning into her work with snap below a picture of the entire group. To the left in the picture is trainer Chris Block and anyone else that you can't recognize are friends of Jean's who ride horses at the same stable she does.

Following the morning picnic/breeze our family stopped at Memory Gardens to pay our respects to the twins - Russell & Richard Johnson who are sorely missed by all their family.  Pop (Richard) has been gone for almost 3 years now and Godfather (Russell) has been gone for over 35 years.  However, their memories continue to ground and guide us - and will for the rest of our own lives.

In the afternoon it was off to sister Nancy's house for a rollicking picnic celebrating the birthdays of Ryan, Tyler and Brad.  Randy had the grill in top form serving us some great burgers and sausage that were outstanding.  Picture below is all of us - showing that we were having a great time.

 

On this Memorial day we have Many Memories to be thankful of!