Sunday at the Tracks

¡Hola amigos! Today we went to the Hipodromo de Palermo, which is a horse race track near our residencia.  I didn’t bet on any races, but unfortunately the people who did bet didn’t win anything. At least it was a nice day though because even though it was cold it was still really sunny.  While we were at the Hiprodromo they were also playing a local soccer game on the televisions inside because the game was a HUGE deal to people here (soccer is like religion to Argentines).  In fact, I got an email from the U.S. Embassy warning me not to go near the stadium where the game would be held because it was pretty much guaranteed that there would be riots.  This is because basically one of the teams, River Plate, needed to win today or they would drop to a lower division league and in the end they tied with the other team and thus dropped down a division.  The fans went crazy and were crying, hopping over the fence onto the field, and throwing things at the team that won.  Security ended up having to spray the fans with a giant water hose to get them to stop, but even that didn’t stop some of the crazier fans.  I haven’t heard anything yet, but there is a high chance that some fans were injured or killed in the riots.  There is even a high risk that some of the losing team’s players will be targeted.  So moral of the story: you don’t mess around when it comes to Argentina fútbol.