A DAY AT THE GOAT RACES

Every year on the first weekend of May, Sly Fox brewery holds a bockfest at its Phoenixville location. My understanding is that the event has been going on for 4 years now. This was our first time. Apparently, it is a rain or shine event, because this time, it rained the whole day.

The focus of the day might be the bock beer but the highlight of the day is the goat race. Cutest damn animals I've ever seen. Some are small enough to carry; others are as large as a pony. Smarter than sheep and each having its own personality (so I was told). The centers of their eyes are oblong in shape, making them even more endearing. They were docile and each took to me, letting me scratch their heads and necks. I want some in my back yard. I want to make goat cheese. I want Sue to learn to milk them. I want to make puns about having kids at home again.

Clearly there are different kinds of goats and not all are created equally cute. We learned from talking to some of the handlers that there are farm goats and show goats and one type has their horns removed. That isn't nice. I want the other type.

But here is where the dream starts to unravel.

I figured, we would have to fence in the back yard, which is OK, but then we learned that no matter what you make your fence out of, you will wake up some mornings and find goats on your car.

Huh? Goats on my car? I have cats on my car now. I drive around with paw prints on my hood like a random form of racing stripe. I can live with that but I have to think goat hooves are going to leave more permanent marks.

And then there is the milking & cheese making part of the dream. I know, you don't just wake up one day and become a craft cheese maker. There would be a learning curve, and a need to secure rennet, and a need to dig a cave for aging the cheese, etc. But then I learned that goats don't just give milk unless they go through some kind of breeding process. That would mean I'd be looking at goats fornicating in my back yard - a wild kingdom image I (and my neighbors) don't need. Dream over. Baa!

Now, about the race... It was chaotic fun. You see, goats don't race. They get pulled to the finishing line by racing handlers who stop just short to allow the goat to cross the line first (or risk disqualification). To further coax the goats along, the crafty owners place other goats - presumably mothers or children, or attractive goats of the opposite sex - and other forms of temptation (everything from hay to marshmallows) at the the finishing line. I can't believe this makes a bit of difference to the goats. but it seems to add a level of strategy to an otherwise, one-dimensional event.

We were rooting for BAA-nana (the marshmallow eating goat) and BRIE (the cute one pictured at the top of this article) but neither won. The winning goat was named DAX. If I remember right, Dax was pulled over the finish line in the first heat by a big guy and should have been disqualified. In my mind, there is some controversy.

The prize for all this excitement is a $75 gift certificate and the naming right for this year's maibock beer, which was tapped immediately after the race.

For more details of the thrilling race, click here.