A Day at the Races

Melbournians treat horse racing the way Irish people treat weddings. As an excuse to dress up, get drunk, debauch with the opposite sex and pay a passing and somewhat disinterested look at the advertised events.

This is a City which declares a Bank Holiday on the day of a certain Horse Race and where the locals can tell you the life story of Phar Lap (a nag from the 1930’s that was a bit special) quicker than they can name the Victorian Premier. But it seems this fascination is less with the equine side of things than with the social opportunities that Horse Racing provides.

The Spring Carnival is a kind of rights of passage event in Melbourne. It’s when the winter clothes are packed away and the sunglasses and fake tans come out. For the rest of the summer, the race meetings provide the perfect opportunity to get some wear out of that $1,000 frock you bought for the carnival. The clothes worn to race meetings in Australia are another link to weddings. Slim fit frocks with spaghetti straps and built in cleavage are de rigueur for the ladies, along with ludicrously high heeled shoes and hats for those over 25. The gents wear stylish suits in the Armani style and shoes that are so shiny you could use them to start a small fire with the aid of the sun and some dry twigs.

At the start of the day, this cortege looks like a picture postcard, but it soon becomes clear that the clothing is completely inappropriate. First to go are the Ladies shoes. High heels are a crazy form of footwear to start with. When you down 16 glasses of bubbly and spend the day in a large field, they become instruments of torture. So it’s not uncommon to see young ladies parading round in their bare feet while clutching an expensive pair of Italian made Gucci shoes. Gents jackets and ties are the next to go, particularly when the mercury hits 40c and the wind decides to take a holiday. Add in copious amounts of alcohol and what starts as a fashion parade ends up like a St Patrick’s Day parade. A lot of drunken people in ridiculous clothes.

The Melbourne Cup attracts 120,000 people to Flemington racetrack. Saturday’s meeting at Caulfield was an altogether more modest affair, but the best traditions of Australian racing were nevertheless on show. Most of the punters were part of group, celebrating a hen night, bucks night (the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of our much more manly “Stag” night) or 21st birthday. The popularity of racing to these people is that it provides ample facilities for large groups to drink al fresco and at the same provides the pretence that you are actually there for something apart from the drinking. Generally, these are the only people not dressed in party frocks and suits and are more likely to be found in an Elvis outfit or “Mankini” (as promoted by Borat). Whether Borat intentionally invented a costume that encourages one testical to hang forlornly from the side is unclear, but this certainly seems to be the result.

Most people cast a half-interested eye at the nags as they thunder by every 40 minutes or so but it quickly becomes apartment that the gap between races is less about getting horses and jockeys ready than providing just the right amount of time to collect winnings, place new bet, relieve your bladder of the extortionate pressure you are putting it under and buy yourself another beer at one of the 25 bars on course. Then you return to the paddock to watch the race on a large screen. Occasionally for the last ten seconds or so, you might actually redirect your eyes to the real horses as they charge by. By this is entirely optional. Many people are happy to go to the races and never see a horse at all. In much the same way as people are happy to go to a wedding and never see the bride and groom. If you bump into them on the way to the bar, you would no doubt say hello and crack a witty comment about when is the baby due. But if you don’t see them all day, then no sweat.

Which is a shame at the races actually, because the horses are actually magnificent. They are genetic mutants of course, being inbred from a French donkey in the 18th century, but as genetic mutants go, they are not bad ones. And they just go to prove that God has no monopoly on beauty. Its seems that every Australian horse is a fantastic chestnut colour and it must be a point of honour to groom their coats so they look like school boys on their First Communion Day. But the real beauty of these magnificence beasts is best felt when they thunder past you on the home straight, necks stretched towards the finish and muscles aching against the jockeys whip. There in that blaze of equine sweat and thundering hooves is the true mystery of racing and the mastery of sport.

But by then most people are gazing at the screen or heading back to the bar. The meeting ends as the sun starts to set behind the grandstand and the winners and losers join the merry and simply drunk in the short walk to the station. Melbourne is the most accessible city in the world. Trams will deliver you directly to the beach, the two biggest sports stadiums are situated next to the two biggest train stations and race courses are served by trains and buses that can whip you back into the City quicker than you can place a reverse double.

On a nice sunny day, its hard to beat a day at races, especially when you pick the winner of the last race and go home with your pocket bulging with your $50 profit.