A Day at the Races

A horse racing track - Golden Gate Fields - sits a mile from our house. We walked over to check it out and watch some races today. Ed couldn't resist the urge to bet a few dollars, so we studied the odds as they developed before each race and bet the favorite to place or show (to be in the top two or three finishers in the race). We made money on every race - usually small amounts, since we were engaging in a fairly low-risk/low-return betting strategy - and came out $17.75 ahead after five races. After subtracting the $4/person entrace fee and the $8.25 we spent on 2 hot dogs and an extra-expensive Root Beer, we came out $1.50 ahead.

There weren't very many people there, so we were able to go right up to the rails and look down at the horses while they were doing their pre-race warm-up. You can also see the jockeys waiting to hop on:



Here are the horses just after coming out of the gate. We bet on #4 (with the yellow number in the center of the pack) and he won the race:



Some of the races were on the dirt track in the foreground of the picture and some were on the turf, like the race above. In the background, you can see Albany hill with the thick trees on the left (we live just on the other side of the hill) and the Berkeley hills further in the background. The odds and payoffs are on the scoreboard thing behind the horses.

During the second race that we saw, one of the horses crashed into the railing and went down. He was laying on his side and wasn't moving. There were lots of people around the horse and poor Ed was convinced that they were busy putting it out of its misery as we watched. But after a few minutes, it jumped up and trotted off the track like it was fine. The jockey had a mild concusion, but he was fine too.

Here are the first and second place horses at the finish line in the last race we saw:



We bet #5 to place and #2 to show - but we only won $.75 on our $10 bet because there were only 5 horses in the race and these two were the heavy favorites. The jockey in the orange jersey is Russell Baze. As of Sept. 4, he had won more than 9,430 races and also happens to be a Mormon who comes to our ward sometimes. Only one other jockey has won more races, with 9,530 career wins, and Russell will probably surpass him soon (we saw him get one more win today).