A Day at the Races!

Photo credit: BMW Sydney Carnival

And awayyyyyyyy we went! Last weekend, some of the girls and I fancied ourselves up and headed to Sydney for the BMW Sydney Carnival. The specific race we attended was the Schweppes Sydney Cup.

As soon as we walked up to the venue, the Royal Randwick, we knew we were in a foreign environment, not literally but socially! Everyone was dressed to the nines sporting dresses, suits, bow ties, stilettos, hats galore, and fascinators all the while sipping on champagne, beer, and cocktails, and placing bets!

I must say though, we ladies looked pretty sophisticated in our heels and dresses, and I bought myself a lovely glass of champagne and bet on some horses, so I think I adapted to the environment quite well!

Anyway, when we arrived, we took some time to walk around and watch a race or two, then Danielle, Gina, and myself headed to the giant tent to place our bets. We are definitely naive American girls when it comes to gambling. God bless the lovely woman who helped us out! Personally, I thought she looked a bit intimidating, but Danielle insisted she would be helpful, so I marched over and put everything straight forward. With a flashy smile, I simply said, "We want to bet on a horse, but have no clue what we're doing! Can you help?" I honestly saw a transformation in her mood as she began to explain all the different bets we could place: straight, single, place, combination, trifecta... There were so many! She basically told us to go look at a book, pick our favourite names and come back and tell her and she would set us up. Not as easy as it sounds. Do you know how hard it is to find a simple little book with the list of horse names?! They are not just sitting around and they're pretty pricey! But finally, we just ventured back to our woman, told her we couldn't find a list of names and she printed them out for us. Too sweet, right?! It's people like this that can simply make your day and experience all the better.

There is my disobedient, crooked horse!

So the three of us decided to place two bets. The first bet was on race four and it was an Eachway bet, I think??? I bet on horse number ten, Brightest, for two reasons: one, ten is my lucky number and was my soccer jersey number for my whole life basically, and two, I really liked the horse's name! Unfortunately, Brightest was exactly the brightest horse in the stable. As they were lining the horses up to be walked out, all the other horses were standing straight (I had blindly chosen my horse, so this was the first time seeing him after I placed the bet) and proper, actually obeying their jockeys.

Horse one came out, followed by two, three, four etc. Then horse number ten lines up and begins wailing his head in every which direction, completely ignoring any directions from his jockey! Great! He wasn't even standing up straight, but I took it as a sign. We were both crooked! (for those of you who don't know, I have scoliosis and very crooked hips, so I tend to use this as an excuse for many things!) I thought I had it in the bag at this point, but clearly I was wrong as I watched Brightest come in 7th place out of ten!

So the next race we bet on, we actually weren't there to see the results, but we looked them up later. We placed the Carnival Combo bet on the sponsored race. I got to pick four horses and any of them had to simply come in first, second, or third. I picked my four horses based on my family's birthdays. I picked horse 3, Niwot, for April 3rd, my daddy's birthday; horse 4, Precedence, for May 4th, my sister's birthday; horse 8, Permit, for August 20th (8/20), for my mum's birthday; and horse 13, Nextanix, for June 13th, my birthday! The race was held after we left for the day, so Danielle checked the results later that night. Niwot placed first! Both Danielle and I had picked him, so we were pretty pumped that we even won! All we had to do was take our ticket to the nearest TAB and claim our prize money. Secretly, I was hoping on making bank, so I was pretty stoked walking up to the ticket window. I handed the woman my ticket and was brought back to reality when she handed me $5.70 and told me to have a nice day. Well, I went straight to the store around the corner and spent my big winnings on a $5 dollar blanket. Seventy cents is left to spend wisely! Hmmmm, a gumball, possibly?

But, despite the small winning, we still WON and had a fabulous day at the races! As Danielle says, we felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. It was simply a lovely day out and a very grand experience!