A night at the races

It was on the "Blue Peter Special Assignment" show in the 1970s.

I remember distinctly seeing the image of Happy Valley Racecourse, lit up at night, sat in the middle of this densely populated city.

Ever since then, I've harboured a dream to go there.

On Wednesday night....WE WENT THERE!!!

The Racecourse was about 15 minutes walk from the hotel. We set off about 6:30 from there to make sure we would be there in time for the 1st race at 7:15.

Walking to the races.

Getting closer to the horsies!

Walking round the outside of the course.

After a bit of research, we had read that it was better to go into the public entrance rather than any of the other enclosures, and so this is what we did.

First view of the public enclosure (and some of the posh boxes up in the stand)

As you can see, the public enclosure was quite large.

We decided to try and work out how to place a bet. We went over to the little stand with the betting slips and initially we were helped by one of the many helpers there. The whole thing was very well organised!

So, having had our initial lesson on having a bet, we grabbed the betting slips, and then we sat down and got our 1st bet on...

We watched the 1st race (we lost!!) and then decided to get something to eat. I know, you're shocked that we're thinking about food, right?

The racecourse, as well as having a couple of western food outlets like McD's, also had some small tents set up in the middle of the enclosure which sold noodles and wontons.

We had 2 bowls of soup/noodles and wontons.

A bit better than a MaccyD's?

The price for these 2 bowls of wontons and noodles was under a fiver!!!

I was quite impressed at the prices of food and drink at the racecourse. I'd expected it to be a mega rip-off, but the public enclosure had several beer tents like the Carlsberg & San Miguel one you can see in the picture. I was surprised that the beer was very reasonable - £3.20 a pint!

So, we got our beers and then went to put our bets on for Race no 2...we watched it...we lost!

Then we began our little winning streak...
We won on Race 3...

Then we won on race 4, 5 and 6!!!

Then we lost on race 7.....but finally won on race 8.

On the whole night, we were up about £30 and that included paying for our food and drinks! Yay! We thought this was really good when we'd only been putting £2 or £3 bets on the horses!!!

Dan had his fabby camera with him and was trying out the 'sports' setting with the horses going past so there are hundreds of pics of the GeeGees!

Speeding past!

This little beauty won us £20!!!

The racehorces were really lovely. I'm always surprised as how fine boned and delicate they are. And completely mental! They all look like they're about to completely freak and run away! In fact, some of the horses needed a horsey escort to get from the paddock to the starting gates.

These lovely white/grey horses were the escorts.

Look at this wild eyed racehorse being led to the gate

So, all in all it was a superb evening. The atmosphere was really really exciting, and the racecourse was as fabulous as I remember from Blue Peter!

Best of all, We WON!!!

Here are all the other posts on our Hong Kong trip