A Night at the Races

I had the priviledge to be invited last Friday night to a dinner cum races at the Singapore Turf Club. I've never been to the races before so it will definitely be an eye-opener. I felt like a country pumpkin attending a ball.

We had the best box in the house - the Singapore Turf Club's President's box. It had the full view of the track with the finishing line. If the box is not occuppied by the President, it would be rented out to the public.

Horse racing in Singapore has had a long and illustrious history, beginning in 1842 with the formation of the Singapore Sporting Club by a group of racing enthusiasts. During its varied and colourful past, the racecourse grounds had been used for an array of activities ranging from polo matches to the landing of the first aircraft in Singapore.

In 1924, the Singapore Sporting Club changed its name to Singapore Turf Club, to better reflect its role. Since then, the Club has moved to its current premises in Kranji, with the SGD 3 million Singapore Airlines International Cup being included in the prestigious World Series Racing Championship.

There was a total of 10 races being run last Friday starting from 6.30pm , every half hour intervals.

My husband and I arrived around 8pm to join the group. The 4th race was on at that time. The box was large enough to comfortably accommodate around 50 people. It had a viewing gallery with 3 rows of leather chairs at the front of the box (which was framed with full height glass from ceiling to floor). The view of the track was fantastic ..... words are hard to describe especially as I've never been to the tracks in my whole life.

As the night went on, we even got caught up in betting. At first I didn't even know what to do but managed after a while. I asked around and everyone had different methods - none logical at all. Would you call betting on your favorite jersey, name of horse, didn't like any jockey wearing pink, etc as logical! What the heck .... I decided to go with name of the horse!

The minimum bet was $5.00 and you could either bet on 1st placing, placement (which means a 1st, 2nd and 3rd placing) or a combination of both. My 1st bet was on "Future Mission" running in Race 5 - I placed $5 for a win - he was one of the favourites. At the start of the bell, he was either 1st or 2nd but half way around the track, he ran out of steam and started to fall behind the pack. I lost on this race but was smarter in placing my bets in the next 5 race. I went for placements after that.

Overall after betting $5 on each race, I was still in the profit. It's definitely not a vice which I will pick up but it was fun for that night.

Below is my best winning for the night - for $5 my gross return was $49. Not bad!