Oaks

Items I have learned today:

• So the “car park” is basically a glorified version of tail gating.  Instead of keg cups, beer and chips,  it is champagne, wine and hors d’oeuvres.  Athletic apparel is replaced by suits and fancy dresses.  But don’t let the fact that there are chairs and tables and catering confuse you, the environment is VERY similar.

OAKS day was a few Thursdays ago (Nov 4th).  I went with Hastings (the company I used to work with) even though my last official day of working was that Monday. I still opted to crash their party, although I don’t really think that crash is the appropriate term.

I met up with Cristina (a girl at hastings that I adore) around 1:00pm, made a quick stop to find her a replacement fascinator (she had left hers at home) and then we were off.  We arrived around race number 4 (I believe there were 9 races that day).  Hastings gave each employee a dollar for each race, so I did actually read the program and pick a favorite… although it was usually based on the names I liked the best, rather than the abilities of the horses (I obviously take race betting VERY seriously).  I tended to pick any arabic sounding horses just by default.  I think one of the horses I wanted placed in one of the races, but I don’t believe that any of my horses won (I also obviously paid A LOT of attention to the races themselves).

Now the hastings folks kept complaining that are carpark location was “crap.”  But I thought it was just fine.  We were located on the corner right next to one of the betting stations.  Apparently though, there wasn’t enough foot traffic to make people happy, not enough opportunities to make um “new friends”.  I was perfectly content however.  Although the weather was definitely not warm, and I did not remove my cardigan at any point during the day.  Other than that, I had no complaints.

Cristina, Lisa-Marie and myself at the car park

Leena and I

Cam, Helen, Joseph and I

There were these HUGE projectors broadcasting the races.  Being in the car park, I finally understood how realistically one could go to the horse race and never actually “see” a horse.  At one point Leena, Helen and I left to go check out the general admission area (I should add much to scorn of the people we were with).  The GA section was a lot less crowded than it was on cup day, but at the same time you actually felt a lot closer to all of the action.

After the last race we all left to go to a place called ‘dicks’ (yes, that is actually the name).  The train on the way home had about an hour delay. I am not kidding, we were actually stuck for an hour. It got to the point where some people literally pressed the exit buttons, walked across a train track, hiked through some bushes, and climbed over a fence to try and hail a cab back to the city. Now that I am actually aware of what held us up in  the first place, I feel really bad for being so annoyed, but at the time I wasn’t a happy camper.  Apparently, at one of the main stations in the city (flinders street) some girl drank way too much, fell off of the platform… and pretty much the worse thing you can imagine happened.  Pretty sad and depressing I know.  We were delayed because someones life had ended (yikes!).

After hearing about that we were no longer bitching about the train moving.  We eventually got to the city and ‘dicks’ apparently was at capacity so we ended back at the crown (have I mentioned that recently I seem to ALWAYS end up there?)

Cristina and I (that was what my fascinator looked like)

Tracey and I

Cam, Marty (looking really happy) and I

Hydrating with Leena and Lisa-Marie

Leena, Helen and I (as we usually roll) hah...

All in all in was a successful Melbourne Spring Carnival.  I got to have both experiences, the “scary” (which btw I loved) general admission for cup day and the carpark for Oaks.   And some how after both races I ended up at the casino afterwords.

But, I can accurately say that good times were had 🙂