A Day At The Races
This year, our work Summer Party was a trip to Sandown Park for a day at the races. This is the third time our party has had an equestrian theme after last year’s Polo tournament and a trip 3 years ago to Kempton racetrack.
After last year’s debacle when one of the coaches broke down and some of us ended up waiting for over an hour for our tickets to arrive, they didn’t lay coaches on for us. Instead we were all trusted with making our way their by train, although they were kind enough to give us the money to cover the fare.
Upon arriving at the racetrack we made our way to our private room where we were given some tips on which horses to back in which race. I’d gone through the form book before this and was glad to see that my choices were pretty similar to his ones. This wasn’t necessarily going to win me big money though as I was to find out later.
After a spot of lunch the racing got underway. There were six races in total and I’d decided that I would bet no more than £5 on a single race. The first race was a blow-out, nothing came in but I then had better luck on the 2nd and 3rd races with a place and a winner in that order.
The next race saw an outsider win which I hadn’t foreseen and so I won sod all there. The fifth race I put on two bets and got a win and a place and so going into the last race I was just over £10 up. Still sticking to my ‘no-more-than-a-fiver’ rule I put a couple of bets on but had another blow-out.
So in the end then, I’d managed to come away with a total win of a whopping £5! Who says that gambling doesn’t pay?
After the final race we hung around drinking a bit more until they kicked us all out at 6pm, at which point a few of my colleagues had come up with a plan. The route out involved walking across the race track and they were going to have their own race.
As we made our way out single file, and everyone had made it onto the track, with a shout of “Go!” they hurtled down the track towards the finish post, much to the annoyance of the guard who tried to chase them to get them to stop.
