A sobering message ahead of horse races

Monster-sized coolers filled with booze will not be allowed at the Foxfield Races on Saturday. Also on the no-no list: glass bottles of liquor, fake IDs, counterfeit tickets and re-entry after exiting.
“What about beer bongs?” one University of Virginia student inquired.
“There are no beer bongs. There are no ice luges,” replied Foxfield’s director of marketing, Anne Susen.
“Beer bongs?” wondered another UVa student.
“No beer bongs,” Susen repeated.
“Yes beer bongs!” the first student exclaimed.
Susen gave a Foxfield 101 lesson to a few hundred UVa students in a university lecture hall Wednesday evening. On Saturday, an expected 24,000 people — many of them UVa students in sundresses or seersucker — will converge at the annual Albemarle County horse race.
“If you’re cool and stay under the radar, you’ll be just fine,” Susen advised the crowd. “Just be cool.”
At last spring’s Foxfield, authorities arrested 85 people. Of those, 84 were in the student section.
Meanwhile, emergency medical officials treated 107 people last year. Of those, 106 cases involved alcohol.
“It is a horse race, believe it or not. They actually have horses that go around. You can even see them from time to time,” Cpl. Sean Hackney of the Albemarle police told the students. “We want you to come out. Have a good time. If you want to avoid getting arrested, don’t break the law.”
If students get arrested for underage drinking, driving while intoxicated, providing alcohol to a minor or any other offense, they may find themselves in jail until Monday morning. The local magistrate’s office will be linked to an on-site station, allowing officers to charge offenders while at Foxfield and transport them directly to jail.
“Some of you are going on to be doctors, lawyers, elected officials,” Hackney said. “Don’t kill your chances.”
The Albemarle Police Department will have 81 officials at Foxfield, including 49 officers. In addition, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control will send 31 agents, the Virginia State Police will send 29 troopers, the Albemarle Sheriff’s Office will send 17 deputies, UVa police will send three bicycle officers and private security firm RMC will send 110 employees.
Denise Lunsford, Albemarle County’s commonwealth’s attorney, told the UVa students that she was the one who gets to “stomp on your buzz” in case of an arrest. If anyone is arrested, Lunsford said, she intends to cut UVa students no breaks.
“All I ask is that you think,” she said.
Along with Foxfield, Lunsford pointed out that three area high schools will be holding proms Saturday night.
“This sounds like a perfect storm,” she said. “Please don’t drink and drive.”
Allen Groves, UVa’s interim dean of students, warned the crowd not to fight back against police if they are arrested. There have been an “alarming” number of cases recently in which UVa students have “laid hands” on police officers he said. Wednesday morning, for example, Groves met with a student and his mother about a case in which the student kicked a police officer trying to arrest him. Last year at Foxfield, police arrested a student who reportedly told the officer, “My uncle is in the CIA. He’s going to have you killed.”
“That can bring down a whole world of problems,” Groves said.
Lydia Cuffman, a UVa student involved with the anti-alcohol abuse club ADAPT, encouraged her classmates to bring along plenty of water, alternate drinking between booze and water, and to remember the signs of alcohol poisoning by the acronym PUBS, which stands for pulse, unresponsiveness, breathing and skin. For pulse, is the person’s heartbeat irregular? Unresponsiveness can be checked by a strong pinch to the arm. Slow and shallow breathing is not a good sign. And cold and clammy skin is the final red flag.
“PUBS is kind of a bad acronym, but you’re going to remember it, right?” she said.
Susen made a point to ask the students not to attempt entering Foxfield with counterfeit tickets, an issue that has apparently surfaced in recent years. She also told the students that they are free to leave their cars at Foxfield overnight if they are in no shape for driving.
“You can leave your car there overnight or even another day if you’re still drunk on Sunday,” she said.