• SLIDESHOW

The theme for the 76th running of the Strawberry Hill Races was The Spirit of 76. The Richmond Ski Club took that idea and ran with it.

"We had 76 of everything," said club member Karen Noakes. "Seventy-six cupcakes, 76 Jell-O shooters, 76 hot dogs. Seventy-six cans of beer in the cooler."

The red, white and blue bedecked effort was enough to win the club a first-place trophy yesterday for tailgating -- an award of perhaps greater general prestige at the Colonial Downs race track than the accolades that went to the winning horses.

For the record, six horses won four steeplechase and two flat races at the track. But for most of the sodden 17,000 or more in attendance, the event was a major party. Just as it is every year.

Bean Glass and Mariah Koptis were tailgating on an actual tailgate, grilling burgers and chicken (marinated in Stubbs' Chicken Marinade) in the bed of a pickup truck. While their friends wandered among the crowds, they tended to the meat and guarded a plastic container filled with what Koptis called "a punch of sorts."

With more than 1,000 official tailgaters, the variety of foods made and served was broad. Cathette Plumer and her friends offered a spread including tenderloin, Mexican quiche, risotto, herbed chicken and bite-size desserts called Lisa's chocolate pots, in honor of their creator, Lisa Vignerot. On the table, Vignerot displayed a photo of her late friend Ned Linder, who served three tours of duty in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"He was a good man. This is for him," she said.

The Lindemann family is synonymous with Strawberry Hill tailgating. The Lindemann Trophy, awarded every year for best traditional presentation, is named for Bohn Lindemann, who tailgated for 50 years. His son, Bob Lindemann, has kept up the tradition for the 55th year, and is now eager to hand the reins over to his son, John.

"We always try to maintain the traditional tailgate concept -- dress appropriately, tablecloths, silver and good, traditional tailgate food," Bob Lindemann said.

The family's idea of traditional tailgate food yesterday began with 30 pounds of barbecued pork shoulder and fried chicken, moved past cheese plates, spinach dip and artichoke dip, and worked its way toward dessert of carrot cake, strawberry crunch cheesecake, brownies and cookies.

The horse-loving Lindemanns come to the event every year for the party and the races. But high above the track, in the clubhouse's Jockey Club, most of the attention was on the horses.

Randy Rouse has been involved in steeplechase racing since 1956, first as an amateur rider and then as a trainer and owner. Horses he has entered into the event have won in the past, including as recently as 2001, and he had two entries in yesterday's races. One of them, a good-looking 6-year-old named Ramazutti, he had just bought six weeks ago; Rouse was running him in a training race to see how he runs.

Rouse loves racing, he said, because "it's a very democratic sport. You can be the richest man in the world and not guarantee you are buying a horse that will win a race. . . . My friend Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the [Washington] Redskins, didn't win any more than I did, and he spent a hell of a lot more."