Serendipity--The Hackensack is a little far from us, but we did consider it. I was wondering about the retrieval aspect myself--though it's small in the northern part, it gets pretty wide by the Hudson.
We saw a company at last year's PTO convention in Philly--I think they had turtles and ducks. They were absolutely adorable and we loved the concept. I can think of a couple of towns around here that could do it easily.
I love the stick horse racing idea! Unfortunately there aren't too many Dad's (if we provided an open bar I suppose we'd get more takers) in our school who'd be willing to actually get involved.
I find the mouse racing a hysterical concept to imagine. When I went to Japan I saw wild boar racing once. The track was very pretty and winding down a hill, and beautifully landscaped. One pig was less than willing and had to be chased down by an employee at the end. Another one I can imagine would work well would be household dog racing--sort of like what you see on Animal Planet when they race Jack Russell Terriers. I know my dog would kick as@--she's a piece of work.
The Hackensack River is about 32 miles long (so it is not large by river standards) It empties into the Hudson River.
I have not taken part in one. I just know they do it every year and that it is a huge money maker for them(thousands of dollars). They do use rubber ducks. They sell them for $10 each and each one is numbered. I am not sure how long the course it, but they certainly do not run the whole length of the river. They probably only run it through the part of the river in their town.
I am sure they must remove all the ducks once the race is over....what the logistics of that are I have no idea.
You could probably do a search for Duck Races and get information. I will ask around to see if I can find someone who has participated and seen it done.
[img]tongue.gif[/img] I actually found the Mouse and Goldfish racing on the internet.....I just typed it in the search bar. I do believe they are real critters....but not positive on that.
Our school did a Nite at the Races fundraiser this year and everyone seemed to enjoy it...I was just looking at other things to possibly add to this years Race nite. Night at the Races is only a taped race that you show on a screen...and people bet on it with fake money. The races are all sealed so that NO-ONE knows the out come. You hve a break in between each race just like at the real horse races. So I thought that adding something else would be fun. We had a stick horse race in between on race last year....it was hilarious! I took all the stick horses I had from my daughters collection and we had the Dad's do one race and the Mom's/teachers another. We laughed our butts off!!! Hopefully this will generate more money for us this year! We did ok for this past year...but not alot of people understood what it was...now that the word has gotten out....it should be better!
