Monday night, Labor Day, we went to the race track. The Red Mile track is a one mile track and on Mondays and Thursdays there’s harness racing there. We got there right at post time for the first race, hearing the sound of the horn announcing the race was soon to begin.
The stadium is fairly large. I don’t know how many people it can seat, but the night we were there, we had our pick of seats. We sat in the front row – practically on the track. It was a great vantage point to observe the horses and the riders (all ages, all sizes, mostly men).
There were 12 or 13 races. Each race takes about two minutes. There are 13 or 14 minutes between races so you can size up the horses, or use whatever method you have to choose which horse to bet on. Our methods ranged from gender of the rider, color of the horse, number of the horse, the odds, the trackman’s picks and, my favorite, length of the horses legs (which was just a rough visual estimate).
I bet on race two and three without success. Race four I bet on PartyLikeARockStar and won! My two dollar bet got me $20.20. At the end of the night, I was $10 ahead. Dad bet once, putting $10 on horse number one (The Ice Queen) and won $30.
We didn’t stay until the end. We’d had enough about halfway through. It was a fun evening.