And We're off to the Races!

About two weeks ago, I went to a horse race at Kembla Grange Racecourse in Kembla, Australia.  One perk of being a uni student is that our college provides special discounts to certain events going on around Wollongong; the horse race being one of those events.  A bus picked up us from campus and drove us to the race course.  Apart from the race track itself, Kembla Grange was a huge complex.  There were a few bars, several rooms to eat and drink, a room for betting, and an outdoor patio area.  My friends and I went slightly under dressed (as a result of inexperience with horse races).  Most men were wearing button-up shirts with ties and dress pants and many of the women were wearing fancy dresses with high heels and small hats (like the kind you see in movies about horse races and don't actually think are real).  Before the races began, we got to see all the horses getting ready for the races in their stalls.

Beginning at 11:45 a..m, the races continued until 4:00 p.m..  Races began every forty-five minutes.  The horses would walk out from the stalls, with their caretakers, and then walk around a small track for a few minutes.  Before leaving the small "show" track the jockey's got on their horses.  The horse and jockey then proceeded on to the real track, which was 1 km I believe.  The last few races were longer than the first few (the horses never actually raced around the whole track, it was always only part of the track).

The horses started in gates that were quite far away from the people in the stands.   However, the finish line was directly in front of the stands!  All in all, great day; really cool to experience a horse race for the first time.


Below is a picture of the friends I went with, all from Colgate.  We were sitting in the shaded sitting area.