So, Now We Have Horse Racing In The Trinity Tailgating Lots

'07 Football NCS Football54

Our arch rival loses, we win a game, and a police officer horse race in the tailgating lots. What a day!
A tale of two horse stories. Check out the true story, and the “official” story.

As we get to the car, we see a bunch of State Highway Patrol standing around (some on
Horseback) and cheering. We look up and two horses with riders are racing each other
down the main aisle in Trinity lot. We found out later that one had bet the other he
could beat him in a race without holding on with his hands. Anyway, they are racing down and
all of a sudden one of them gets clotheslined on a cable coming down from a wooden pole
(street lamp maybe?) and the rider comes off hard.

The horse is now wildly running through the lot, nearly running over a small kid before the
other cops on horseback intercept. The cop that got clotheslined is able to walk, but has
hurt his arm pretty bad. I didn’t get too close, but could see blood even from where I was. A White Unmarked SUV picks him up in short order, apparently after being radioed to come get him. The small kid was visibly upset by it all.

Absolutely brilliant. It is the type of behavior you’d expect from drunk college kids in the lots, not
from the public servants that are supposed to be protecting people. I’m sure it will get swept under the rug. Anyone else on the boards happen to see this?

Here is the official story from the police department:

Raleigh — A Garner police officer underwent surgery on his thumb Saturday night after he was injured in a horse-riding accident. Officer John Taylor and several other police officers were scheduled to patrol the N.C. State University football game on horseback Saturday.

The officers took the horses for a run in a parking lot near Trinity Road before the game to keep the animals from being skittish around the large crowd. Taylor’s horse strayed off and ran into a guide wire from a light pole, authorities said. The horse was not injured, but Taylor’s thumb was torn and had to be operated on, officials said

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'07 Football NCS Football

54 Responses to So, Now We Have Horse Racing In The Trinity Tailgating Lots

  1. Mr O 10/29/2007 at 11:50 AM #

    http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc07.htm

    Up to #58 in the Sagarin. Miami isn’t ranked much higher than us even though Vegas has them as a 13 point favorite.

  2. LRM 10/29/2007 at 11:57 AM #

    I’ll say this…walking out of C-F is much more fun after a W. That was a great atmosphere and a fun game all around. From my vantage point in Section 30, a lot of people in the end zones and upper deck corner missed out on it, too.

  3. RAWFS 10/29/2007 at 12:02 PM #

    I would take State and 13 points if I were in Vegas today. Those are stupid odds.

  4. joe 10/29/2007 at 1:05 PM #

    N&O has the story but nothing about a race

    http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/garner/story/753400.html

  5. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 10/29/2007 at 1:14 PM #

    Someone needs to get control of our ‘public safety’ officers. You got the highway patrol raping women in their patrol cars and betting on Trooper horse races. Not to mention the other problems going on with that group. I hope I don’t get tazed for saying this bro, but these folks are a disgrace.

    I saw five of the mounted patrol standing in a line in front of the student entrance in some cock strong display of don’t F with us you commoner lest you want to be beat down. What the hell is this crap?

    When I was a kid, you got in the Buick drove through a muddy pasture, ate some chicken, the parents where drinking the kids throwing footballs and then you went to the game. I don’t ever remember seeing police in the lots treating fans as some kind of criminals, people being searched and police going through people’s bags without probable cause. The police state that the University has allowed to take place at games needs to end.

  6. FrankManor 10/29/2007 at 1:19 PM #

    because some fans don’t know how to act…and because this ain’t your daddy’s tailgate, sadly…the Man is out in full effect.

    The whole tailgate cap-popping a few years back didn’t help either, nor does the generally belligerent behavior of those “tailgaters” (ie, people who get drunk in a parking lot-whoo hoo!) over there either.

    The folks who taligate near the RBC are the only ones who know somewhat how to act; a much more family friendly atmosphere and less crudeness/violence/threats of violence/etc.

  7. RAWFS 10/29/2007 at 1:26 PM #

    The folks who taligate near the RBC are the only ones who know somewhat how to act;

    Stadium Southeast (and I am sure that the wests side too) calls BS to that.

    The whole “problem” was unrestricted student parking right next to the place where visitors parked. You can go to ANY school in the ACC (excepting Duke) and the “troublemakers” will be the students who over-imbibe and then see an opposition fan walking nearby.

    The University, ever the forward thinking people that they are, never saw the lack of common sense in putting those two groups adjacent to one another. It added insult to injury when it decided to punish the innocent, namely anyone tailgating north of Trinity Road. We’ve had plenty of guests from other schools at our tailgates and respect is given and it is returned. Sure, we have a few adult beverages, but not enough to disconnect our good sense from the rest of our bodies.

  8. FrankManor 10/29/2007 at 2:04 PM #

    “The whole “problem” was unrestricted student parking right next to the place where visitors parked.”

    yep.

    “you can go to ANY school in the ACC (excepting Duke) and the “troublemakers” will be the students who over-imbibe and then see an opposition fan walking nearby.”

    to some extent, but that extent can vary widely. Bur, I’ve been to every ACC venue, except for BC, and let me tell you that it’s a considerable matter of degree. Sadly, the “fans” at and near CF come off as some of the absolute worst in terms of behaviour, belligerence, rank homophobia, and physical threats … these fine gentlemen (and occasional women) are rivalled in my experience only by WVa fans.

    with that in mind, I think the WITH program has a great plan, and a likely much more effective one than the Man wandering around.

  9. LRM 10/29/2007 at 2:41 PM #

    I think we all have a tendancy to overgeneralize. I didn’t witness the horse racing so I can’t comment either way. But the deputies in the Trinity Lot that I came across Saturday — and other games this year — were friendly and largely unassuming. We had a very large, well-behaved group and several deputies stopped by to see what we were cooking up; we offered them food and water and by all indications they were good ol’ boys just doing what they were hired to do.

    I suspect that if you’re keeping a low profile and not doing anything wrong that you won’t ever know the cops are there. Which is the way it should be.

    P.S. To the guy that sits three rows back from me, two things: 1) if the ball doesn’t make it back to the line of scrimmage, even if he’s out of the pocket, it’s still intentional grounding; and 2) every play we’re on defense can’t be a hold…I’m sorry, it just can’t.

  10. ClassOf91 10/29/2007 at 2:50 PM #

    I’ve had no problems with the cops, and in fact have offered them food before. They’ve always been friendly. The horse racing was simple bad judgment and it is a shame someone got hurt. It could have been a lot worse if the horse had trampled a bystander.

    Honestly, I’m more concerned about lies/coverups. Come clean and accept responsibility. But don’t come out and start lying about it.

  11. noah 10/29/2007 at 3:01 PM #

    LRM – My objection to the intentional grounding call was that it wasn’t called on Sewell in the first half on a similar play.

    BTW, I listened to an MP3 file of the radio broadcast from last year the Monday after Mich. State blew a big lead to Notre Dame. This is the famous broadcast where the host of the show is completely hoarse from screaming all weekend kept saying, “MAKE PLAYS!!! MAKE PLAYS!!!” His producer is trying to get him to stop and the host keeps getting more hysterical.

    THAT is a terrific way to start a monday. I was almost crying listening to the poor guy just completely lose his mind.

    I also enjoyed him urging the coaches to put in zone blitz packages that they’d NEVER practiced before. He reminded me of the guy who wanted to run the “play where TA didn’t fumble and we score a touchdown.”

    Uh…okay.

  12. waxhaw 10/29/2007 at 3:50 PM #

    ^ Exactly (as to Sewell’s grounding no call)

    On the play where Sewell threw into the line and it was a no call due to a receiver being in the area, it appeared that the ball hit one of their offensive lineman. I thought this was illegal touching but that might only be in the NFL. Does anyone know?

  13. LRM 10/29/2007 at 3:54 PM #

    Refs miss calls; that’s inevitable. But that doesn’t change the rule. Just because it wasn’t called against Sewell doesn’t mean it wasn’t still grounding against Evans (not to mention the Sewell play was much more gray, whereas Evans’ play was unmistakable).

  14. noah 10/29/2007 at 3:55 PM #

    One of the ECU QB’s passes nailed his lineman in the head and got picked off. I don’t remember a flag being thrown.

  15. BoKnowsNCS71 10/29/2007 at 4:05 PM #

    Wonder if cops on horses make love in the back seat like troopers do?

  16. BoKnowsNCS71 10/29/2007 at 4:07 PM #

    Why is that all the problems that happen at our games (or at the Fair) occur in the State Fairgrounds Parking area. Guess they will shorten tailgating even more and make the line take longer to get into CF now.

  17. waxhaw 10/29/2007 at 4:27 PM #

    I had a friend bring a motor home to the FSU game last year. We couldn’t get a reserved spot so we stayed in the fairgrounds lot. I would never do that again.

    Not only was the motor home broken into, the lot was an absolute joke. I did my share of partying in college but what was going on there was embarassing. I have a hard time believing the majority of people there were students. After witnessing that, I stopped complaining about the tailgating restrictions, other than to point out that it’s not fair to punish everybody for those people’s actions.

  18. ClassOf91 10/29/2007 at 4:34 PM #

    BoKnows, as stated above, the Trinity Lot is NOT the lot on the fairgrounds side of Trinity. It is on the stadium side behind the Faculty lot.

  19. bjenning1 10/29/2007 at 4:47 PM #

    I park over in the TX lot and saw the officers on horseback in the Trinity lot. They were running the horses down the Trinity lot, from Trinity road to the back of the lot. Didn’t really look like they were racing, just running them for exercise when no one was really in the lot. It was during the second quarter. Didn’t see any HP, just campus police. I can’t speak to what was going on in the fairgrounds lot. Didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

  20. ClassOf91 10/29/2007 at 5:12 PM #

    They were “running” them together and were not using the reins. Other officers were standing around cheering them on until the one hit the guy wire.
    I only got there shortly before the accident. The people near me that I talked to afterwards said they had been racing them for awhile, at one point with 4 horses at a time. They are the ones who told me that one of the officers bet/challenged the other to ride without using the reins this last time (I have no reason to think this was a monetary bet).

  21. bTHEredterror 10/29/2007 at 6:41 PM #

    From the NCAA rulebook:

    Illegal Touching
    ARTICLE 11. No originally ineligible player while inbounds shall intentionally touch a legal forward pass until it has touched an opponent or an official (A.R. 5-2-3-I and A.R. 7-3-11-I-III).

    In other words its only illegal touching if the ineligible player plays the ball. A lineman blocking with his back to the QB who gets hit by the ball and makes no attempt to catch it shouldn’t be penalized.

  22. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 10/29/2007 at 6:43 PM #

    “I did my share of partying in college but what was going on there was embarassing.”

    Damn kids stay off my lawn! Are we getting old?

  23. GAWolf 10/29/2007 at 8:58 PM #

    I’ve said on previous threads that I get to deal with cops/troopers/deputies/public safety officers daily. Some of them are fantastic guys with their primary motivation for being in law enforcement is to help people and make the world a better place. Unfortunately, that number is dwindling quite rapidly. It’s really a shame, because the guys who still seek to “serve and protect” versus “harass and exercise (what they see as) unbridled authority” simply don’t deserve the bad press.

    This incident, while clearly bad judgment, doesn’t really concern me. The fact that they were being jovial and goofing around beats writing tickets to 20 year old kids having a beer at their parents’ tailgate. And it comes nowhere near all the debacles that have recently graced our local papers about bad cops… many of which are still carrying a gun and patrolling your streets as I type this because the powers that be know it’s easier to cover up bad cop behavior than do that right thing. The press release on this incident is indicative of that ever-growing (and quite scary) phenomenon.

    AND BTW, Mr. O… OMG WTF. My new bride says that she’s cramming something sharp up your pooper the next time she sees you. (Those were her words not mine.)

  24. waxhaw 10/29/2007 at 9:02 PM #

    “Damn kids stay off my lawn! Are we getting old?”

    🙂 Next thing you know, I’ll have a kid at NC State raising hell in the fairground lot. (assuming they Wake county isn’t a dry county by then)

  25. choppack1 10/29/2007 at 11:15 PM #

    ” Bur, I’ve been to every ACC venue, except for BC, and let me tell you that it’s a considerable matter of degree. Sadly, the “fans” at and near CF come off as some of the absolute worst in terms of behaviour, belligerence, rank homophobia, and physical threats … these fine gentlemen (and occasional women) are rivalled in my experience only by WVa fans.

    with that in mind, I think the WITH program has a great plan, and a likely much more effective one than the Man wandering around.”

    I’ve been to every venue in the ACC too. I’ve been yelled at in Chapel Hill while walking down the street w/ red on before the State-UNC game. In BC a group came over to where we standing and started some silly “Go To Hell” chant, UVa’s and GaTech’s folks are fine. Clemson is good natured ribbing – but I haven’t ventured through where the students tailgate before the game.

    I was walking through the student tailgating area before we played FSU in 2003 – and it was an absolue zoo w/ tons of taunts and foul language. Of course, the FSU co-eds were so hot, we didn’t care. Of course, big school, big game, late kick-off and student section. Don’t get me started on OSU – I had a blast, but you better be ready to be cursed at – I mean, you’ve 10K people wearing F*CK MICHIGAN shirts – and it’s spelled out!

    I really think the big problem is the location of the student lot right beside the visitor lot. Aggrevating this problem is the fact that a reputation has arisen that this is a wide-open party zone.

    Heck, the fairgrounds has been out of control for a while. I don’t know why the powers that be didn’t see that coming – they were certainly fairly concerned about Brent Road before something bad happened there. Before that happened, my wife and I parked close to this spot and it was obviously a wild environment.

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