An Evening at the Races

A long trek to Kranji, cockroach leg in my soup and a spot of gambling just about sums up this evening’s highlights.

XJ’s firm hosted a client event in one of the VIP lounges at the Turf Club so I tagged along. Ran into one of my ex-clients from B Co. What a surprise. But nothing beats the shock of finding a lone cockroach leg in my "Cream of Wild Mushroom" soup. Gross. All the waitress could muster was "oh my God…" and quickly grabbed the offending bowl of soup and scurried away. No apology, no replacement (not that I wanted any!!!!), and what?!?!? No free gift?!?!?!?

Of course, no visit to the Turf Club would be complete without placing some bets, right? But before you think we’re compulsive gamblers, let me just state for the record that it’s our first time ever. Singapore Pools kindly provided us with a "Tip Sheet" for each of the races that night. We eagarly placed bets on Gutsy Star and Akashi Champion - tipped as hot favourites to win - but they came in close to last! So much for beginner’s luck!

Unfazed, we decided to go for a dark horse next - and chose Bright Bambino - which had odds of 5:346 (i.e. you place a bet of S$5 that it will be placed in the top 3 and if it does get placed, you win S$346). Great returns, but that also means it’s unlikely to win lah. But heck the winner of the last race wasn’t a favourite either. Unfortunately, we forget - Murphy’s XJ’s best friend. Moments after we placed our bets, we heard the pre-race commentary over the PA system: our darling Bambino had broken his leg in April. If we hadn’t put our money on him, the events unfolding at the start-line would have been totally hilarious - they were trying to drag the poor horse into the starting grid (izzat what you call it?) and it was kicking and resisting like crazy. No amount of shoving, tugging, kicking, jabbing in the ass would get poor Bambino to step into his place. The poor sweetie must have been too traumatised from his accident! They finally pulled a blindfold over his eyes and led him in. Bambino dear actually did pretty well the first half of the race despite being last off the block. I think he was too freaked out and wanted to get away. He actually caught up and reached 2nd place! Boy, was I cheering for him. But for all his efforts, he still couldn’t last the distance. :(

We finally came to the conclusion that we were just not born to be gamblers when, for the next race, we placed bets on 4 out of the 12 horses and STILL didn’t win anything. Destined to slog for life I tell you. Sigh…

View of the race course and finishing line from our VIP box