I haven't been to the races in awhile, so it was fun to go again. Lots of people were dressed up, or overdressed in some cases, and there were several hats that looked like they could have come out of the racing scene in My Fair Lady.
It was quite windy and a bit chilly, so Mom, Steve, and I sat in one of the indoor viewing lounge areas. We were able to get a table next to a window, and we had a good view of the track.
They actually interrupted the races to show Shane Warne score his 700th wicket in the Ashes tournament. Australia has won the ashes, but decided to go ahead and play the last games anyway, and Shane Warne is retiring from test cricket after this year, so it was a big deal for him to get 700 wickets and set a new record.
For most of the day, we placed trifecta bets - Mom, Steve, and I each picked a horse in each race to place. For almost every race, we got two out of three, which doesn't result in money (we'd usually only bet about $10 per race; Steve graciously was our intermediary with the bookies), but we were at least picking some good horses. Steve tried his hand with a few bets on single horses, and actually won money twice. In the racing newspaper, we came across a horse named Corporate Kate, but she wasn't racing that day, unfortunately.
I managed a couple of pictures. A special shoutout to my college photo teacher, Carol Dickie - I remembered the action shot lesson.
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Just an FYI for cricket fans:
- The Ashes are the ashes of the wooden bails that sat on top of the stumps from a cricket match between Australia and England back in the early 1800s. They're kept in an antique ashes urn that's no more than 2 or 3 inches tall (lot of fuss for this little piece of history).
- Shane Warne is known as one of the bad boys of sport. He'd been banned for a full year from cricket for using banned substances. He's still managed to get 700 wickets in his Test Cricket career.
- Two more cricket players have decided to retire from Test Cricket after the 5th test match. Glenn McGrath who's been playing cricket since the early 1990s is also retiring. He could have been a pro-basketball player (really tall guy). He took someone's advice early on and went into cricket
- Justin Langer also playing since the 1990s has alwo retired. He's a larrikin. Funny, funny guy.
These guys are all going to be missed. Now it won't be so one-sided in future Test Cricket or other international cricket matches. For a few years anyway (sigh).
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