Flying home

The kids and I are home.  We had to leave for the airport at 8am this morning, which was a far earlier flight than we'd have liked, because they love being in Melbourne, and they love their cousins and their family so much, as do I.  They kept saying 'why do we have to go home?'

They liked seeing the track that I work at, they liked the Media Centre, and thought that the Racing Press Room was cool.  And they are very keen to come again, which I loved.  The kids are always so sad leaving Melbourne, as am I.  The huge difference this trip though was that we had the excitement of the flight to look forward to instead of a gruelling 8 hour drive home.  They found the smaller Dash 8 plane home daunting to begin with, but fun and exciting in the end!  Although we were all cold in the plane! 

We can say with complete certainty though, that the love we feel and share with the Famous Pony, Black Caviar, or Nelly, is unique and genuine, and we were all so fortunate to be there yesterday.   Jessica said to me while we were eating breakfast this morning "I was so excited to see Nelly racing, she's actually much faster than I thought she would be.  Do you know what my horse is going to be called when I grow up?  It's going to be called Nelly".  I hope it's an experience that they will never forgot.
Below are some of the images that Heath took of the Famous Pony.  I think he's very talented..  I am shaking my head crossly at myself at the fact that the camera I handed him was set to a different white balance (I usually always leave it on auto for this very reason!), and in the hurry (we met up less than 10 mins before a race I had to photograph) of getting them sorted, handing him a camera, I forgot to change it, plus I didn't want him to run out of space on his card, so I also swapped him over to JPG not RAW, and as we all know, if you bugger it up on RAW it's ok, buggering it up on JPG is a far more serious sin.. Sigh..... He should be able to expect more from his photographer mother...  But he did really well I though, I was very proud of him.
Black Caviar, or their Nelly, flys to victory in the Lightning.  Photo by Heath Howard.  The bad colours are ALL my fault!
Black Caviar, or their Nelly, flys to victory in the Lightning.  Photo by Heath Howard.  The bad colours are ALL my fault!
Black Caviar, or their Nelly, flys to victory in the Lightning.  Photo by Heath Howard.  The bad colours are ALL my fault!
Black Caviar, or their Nelly, flys to victory in the Lightning.  Photo by Heath Howard.  The bad colours are ALL my fault!
Black Caviar, or their Nelly, flys to victory in the Lightning.  Photo by Heath Howard.  The bad colours are ALL my fault!
Black Caviar, or their Nelly, flys to victory in the Lightning.  Photo by Heath Howard.  The bad colours are ALL my fault!
A few from Mum.. 






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