Thursday saw my first trip to the race ground itself (and in fact my first trip to a race ground anywhere, for that matter), as we headed to Flemington for Oaks Day. Unfortunately my betting abilities were in no way improved by my proximity to the races themselves, but it was still a fun way to spend the day, swanning around in a suit, drinking cheap Champagne, eating “Dim Sim” on a stick (a bizarre Australian-Chinese hybrid of a food that seems to consist of some kind of fried fat, with a coating of some more fat, dipped in soy sauce), and wandering over to the bookies to give them money in return for an extra element of excitement in the next race. The best I managed all day was a solitary place in the seventh race, but even then the odds were so poor that my each way bet paid out less than my total initial stake.
By the time I returned to the course on Saturday (for Stakes day, and Chris’s stag do), I was slowly coming to the realisation that the only way I’d ever stand any chance of any kind of betting success was to abdicate responsibility for any actual decision making, and let someone do it. It was time to join a syndicate.
And so it was that I ended up going in with four of the other guys, and we decided to try to pick the trifecta (a type of bet where you win by picking all of the first three horses in the race, in order). There were five of us, so we picked a horse each for each of five races, and took it in turns to put the bet on, each time betting on all possible combinations of those five horses so that, should any three of our five come in in the first three places in any order, we’d be in the money. We put the bet on at 50 cents, so with 60 possible combinations of our 5 horses, it was a total $30 bet each, and we knew that we’d get half of any displayed prize money at the end of the race.
After 3 fruitless races, I was starting to think that my jinx was carrying over into other people’s bets. Even worse, it was now my turn to stick the bet on. Scanning the odds in the creased copy of the Herald Sun we were all circled around, I opted for “Grey Song”. At 26-1, it clearly had no chance of coming in the places, but at least if by some miracle it did we’d get a decent return. The others gave me their four horses in turn, and off I trotted to the TAB desk to put our bet on, and we settled back in at our spot by the finish line to watch race 7, the Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
By the time the horses came round the final bend, two of our horses were running in first and second places. Close, but clearly not enough. But what’s this? It’s Grey Song making a late dash round the outside and appearing to cross the line in third place.
“I think we’ve got it!” I shouted, as we all waited eagerly for the giant TV screen to display the result. Sure enough, there were three of our horses, including my Grey Song. And thanks to those long odds, it paid out $1987… er, of which we got half, and it was split between 5 people, and it was Australian dollars. But, hey, it’s the most money I’ve ever won and going to collect it was an extremely satisfying moment. “Is Green OK?” said the woman as she started counting out $100 bills in front of me. Oh yes. That’ll do nicely…
