On Saturday we finished work early and then got to
go down to Morphettville for a day at the races. There was an incident that
morning with the polo stallion Bud getting stuck in the wires of his fence and
cutting his legs, but it wasn’t as bad as we had feared so Debbie (the other
groom) and I were still able to go. It was sunny but because of the wind it
didn’t get too hot. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a whole lot going on at the
racetrack and only very few spectators for Australia. It would have been a
normal day on a German racetrack, but racing in Australia is way bigger that it
is at home. This way, we didn’t have to fight for the good spots near the
finish line and in the stands, at least.
In between races, we had a good look around and
things are very different in Australia that they are in Germany (and England as
well, Debbie said). You can get a lot closer to the horses as a spectator, for
one. Only the last few meters in front of the “stables” are fenced off and for
owners, trainers etc. only. But you can watch them prepare the horses for the
race. The reason I put stables in quotation marks is that in contrast to
Germany, the horses don’t actually spend the day in proper stables but are tied
up in cross-ties while they wait for their run. The majority of European
racehorses would not stay in cross-ties, at least not without freaking out and
endangering themselves and their grooms. The Aussie thoroughbreds are used to
it and there was absolutely no drama. The grooms are a lot less harsh with the
horses than they are in Europe; no hitting, no ripping on the lead chains, no hitting
them over the head with the bridle and the metal bit (all things I have seen on
German racetracks). Something negative we noticed is how skinny the horses are.
I am well aware that thoroughbreds are thinner than most horses but they also
tend to be all muscles and here a lot of the horses were just skin and bones.
The longest race of the day was 1900m, so all short distance. And the flyers especially
tend to be a bit chunkier, like human sprinters, with a very big butt. Not the
horses at Morphettville, though.
Another thing that’s different to how things get
done in Europe was the fact that some horses were led to the gates from
horseback, like they do in the US. Not all of them, so we assume it’s only the
difficult ones that get this special treatment. They also spend a lot more time
in the parade ring with the jockeys on their back. In Germany, it’s basically
hop on and go, whereas here, they were walking with the little men on their
backs for quite some time. After the race, the six best placed horses are
brought into cross-ties in front of the stands again to be unsaddled. And
again, Debbie and I agreed that German and British racehorses would not go into
them without a lot of drama, which must be why we don’t have them.
We did not actually bet (like with real money) but
for every race, we would both pick a horse we thought would win and between us,
we almost always had a winner, and if not that, than at least a horse in the
top three. It was super fun, even though the races were run on the inner oval,
so you didn’t get as close as a spectator. But since the race was always on the
big screen as well, you didn’t miss out on the action. Amongst the spectators,
there were a lot of buck parties which meant drunk guys in cocktail dresses
which was funny at first but ended up getting more annoying the more drunk they
got.
Unfortunately, we had to leave before the last race
because we had to take the horses in and feed, but it was worth the trip down
to Adelaide and nice to get out of our stable routine, even for a couple of
hours.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen