Off To The Races

Located near campus is the Royal Randwick Racecourse and for the next few weeks they are hosting the Sydney Carnival, three full Saturdays of thoroughbred horse racing. We bought tickets for the first raceday and made sure our outfits were ready for the black and white affair celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Australian Jockey Club Derby.  We were told that girls go all out for these races; tall heels, short dresses and big hats, so we had an excuse to go shopping!

So this morning we got up early, got ready and left for the racecourse, but carried our hats instead of wearing them because we thought we looked ridiculous.  As soon as we got there we realized that we weren't going to be out of place at all, so we jumped right in to the horse race scene and placed a few bets.  Of course we had no idea what we were doing so we only did about $1 at a time, but it was fun to have something to cheer for during the runs.  My brother had suggested that I find the one with the highest odds and put a dollar down, so I bet on a horse named Ducarius who had 201:1 odds (meaning that $1 would pay out $201 if he won).  He did not win, and in fact we realized why the odds were so bad when he ended up walking across the finish line almost a minute after the others had crossed.

Black Caviar taking the lead to keep
her title as World's Fastest Sprinter

The most exciting race of the day was the Sydney debut of Black Caviar, a 5 year old mare and the fastest sprinter in the world.  She spent most of the race in 3rd place, which worried the crowd (most of whom had come just to see her), but in the last 100m sprinted ahead of everyone, leaving us screaming, clapping and waving flags decorated with her jockey's signature colors; pink with black spots.  After today's race she is undefeated for all 13 of her race starts and her owners are even more wealthy.