Horse Racing

So I went to my first horse race the other night. Don't worry, I'm not becoming a gambler...although you might be led to believe that after my escapades in Macau last weekend. But like Macau, I was somewhat successful in my betting. I bet on two races. I basically picked the horses by their names. The first race I bet on the 5 horse, Cool Cat. But during the race, I was sure I actually bet on horse 4, which placed. So when I went to collect on what I thought was a winning ticket, I was told I had a losing ticket. So sad.

The next race I bet on was race 6. This time I actually bet on the 4 horse to place, Super Goal Master, because I thought that was a ghetto fabulous name. This horse definitely was not a favorite to win, but it ended up getting second! So I won $26 hkd! So overall, between placing the two $10 bets, losing one and winning another, I came back up 6 whole dollars! WOW.

Horse racing was nearly as confusing as the slot machines where. There are 4 different kinds of bets that come on a little bit bigger than business card sized sheets of paper and look like scantrons. Then you check in various numbers on the card based on what race, which horse and what place, and how much you want to bet.

Everyone takes their horse racing so seriously here. They all have their newspapers and follow the odds on the TV very closely. There are off-track betting places all over the city that are always full on race days and saturdays. The race track is kind of like a little oasis in the city. All sorts of people are there; its very international. For the last races we watched, we were situated right near the start line and the finish, so we got to see the most exciting parts of the race! I definitely want to go back some time. They have all sorts of promotions--we tried to get our nails painted and fortunes told, but signed up too late since. We took the time to go to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner....we all needed some american food!

A little collage I threw together in photoshop (its a little small here, double click to see it bigger). I got some really cool pictures of the race. The one at the top is probably my favorite.