No Country for Fat Jockeys.

On Saturday, we went to the Woolomai Picnic Races, where the company was hosting a day at the country horse races...and country it was.

As we drove out to the races, I'm sure we passed more cows,
sheep, goats, and reindeer than people.

We had quite an education on how to read a race book, so we could bet on the ponies (that could have come in handy prior to the Melbourne Cup, but I digress).  Got a good look at the horses and their jockeys and began our betting.  It was a fruitful day, I think we won $16 on a total of $26 worth of bets.  Clearly, we failed our exam on reading the race book.

But the best part (as you can imagine with something called 'picnic races') was the people watching.  We had a tent set-up for our crowd, and we happened to be right next to a Buck's Night and Hen's Night - the Aussie equivalent of bachelor and bachelorette parties.  One of the grooms-to-be had an inflatable horse that he rode - all day (including a go around the horse track), and the other had on a suit.  Every time we saw the suit-groom, he was missing either a pant leg or jacket arm.  By the end of the day, he had on suit shorts with a suit coat with no sleeves.  The hen's night was just as classy, with champagne-swilling, cigarette smoking, nonsense.

These are our guys doing shots, not the Buck's Night  :)

The horses (which is really why we were there) were...interesting.  Some had a good race - others, not so much.  Some were FF (which does not stand for Fastest Finisher, as I had originally thought, but instead stands for FAILED to FINISH).  The jockeys, well, let's just say that they likely won't be running in the Triple Crown.

They still had one more lap to go, and I am certain that I
bet $2 on the last one...she did not win.

We had a great time and I'm sure we'll head to some Picnic Races again.