Its the third day, taking things slow now. Woke up late, decided to drive to Hawkesbury Turf Club which was having its race day today. Its about 65km away and a nice leisurely drive through the suburbs.
In Malaysia there are just 3 turf clubs. Two in HK. In the state of NSW alone, there are 4 city tracks (bigger races, Canterbury, Rosehill, Randwick and Warwick Farm) and 4 provincial tracks (Illawara, Hawkesbury, Newcastle, Gosford). They really love their racing in Australia. Now multiply that with the other states, thats why you have horse racing everyday, plus greyhounds and harness (trotting).
Its very nice to drive to a provincial track, the people are very laid back, everyone comes dressed casual, drink lots of beer and wine and families wander around the track having picnics. Plus you get to see real horses racing and you can have a bet as well. You get to see more country folks at provincial tracks and its kinda nice.
Prior to that, headed to Marrickville (about 25 minutes from the city, an enclave of Aussies from Vietnam) to get my fill of pho. They do this very nicely thanks to great tasting OZ beef. Side note, OZ chicken dishes are tasteless, take anything with chicken its tasteless due to the "healthy feed" for the chicken.
If you visit Sydney, you will inevitably visit Star City, the casino. There are plenty of good places to eat there. The hard to book a seat, Momofuku is here. Failing that, you should at least try the Messina gelato, unbelievably good.
The famed patisserie Adriano Zumbo is here as well. His shop is quirky, he has revolving small desserts much like the sushi revolving thing that you can pick and eat.
Possibly catching Legally Blonde the musical sometime later in the week.
2 comments:
Horse racing is one of my best past times.In the eighties I used to go and stay every weekends in Ipoh.I used to have some friends who took bets from betting syndicate members for 4 ringgit and gave to bookies for 4.10 and a loss of 10 cents.Just to get first hand tips on the horses that the syndicates were betting.
They were betting big time in Penang and Ipoh and doing very good.At least until the syndicates started giving them four to five horses in a race instead of one or two.Usually with the last couple of horses two or three minutes before post time.
One guy in the car at the parking field,waiting for the carphone to ring.Then he runs to the fence and gave the horses to one more guy who gave the bets to the bookies.The bookie than gave orders to his gang of teenagers who ran helter skelter to everywhere and nowhere.Then they came back and tally when the horses were running and the final count is what they gave out.
Four or five thousand tickets per horse,depending on how many horse they bet in that race.Eight or nine races per day,two days a weekend for years.In the end the runner who gave out the bets bought bungalows,whereas my friends ended up owing hundreds of thousands to the runner.And the guy told my friends pay whenever you can,if you can.He never bothered to collect.He was laughing all the way to the bank every Wednesday when the accounts were settled every week.Myself,I lost my pants too.
I think that the land of the free,the good old USA has the most racetracks in any country on this planet.
In New York alone,it has three racetracks under the NYRA umbrella.One of them is the largest in the country,the Belmont.It is also home to the last leg of the triple crown,the Belmont Stakes.
Saratoga is the racing hub of the racing world in the summer.Where top local trainers and some European and ME trainers and owners make it a must to show up thier ugly faces.It is a prestige to even win a claimong race in this summer event.
Last but not least is the Aqueduct winter racetrack.Once the neglected of the three ugly siblings and the main losing concern,it has found a new lease of life in Genting setting up a slots machine only casino.And Genting has reaped hundreds of millions of profit already.Damned these stupid Americans,needed an Asian gambling house and not Nevada or AC to teach them how to suck eggs.
Then upstate it has Fingerlakes for the lower claiming and allowance horses.And also a few small harness racetracks around the state.Now all these small racetracks have racinos(slots) in order to survive.
Even all the small states have at least one or two racetracks.Even in funfairs they have these two furlong sprint races called quarterback races.
The dow has finally closed,down almost 185 pts.It has dropped over 1,100 pts since last making five years high about two months ago.
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