The race that stops a nation

Today was the Melbourne Cup.  I’d only bet in it for the first time last year when I saw a stand specifically set up in the mall for betting on that one race.  It kind of is exciting.  Even during primary school, we would rather around an old TV and watch it for three minutes, even if it interrupted classes.  I loved watching a bit of the history of it a few days ago and how long it’s been going, and how today it is worth $360 million.  I found it crazy hearing reports from TAB and other betting companies that people were making $100,000 bets.  I guess if you’ve got that to throw away, sure!

I only decided to bet with half an hour to go (in typical Matt-fashion) before the race started.  I realised there was no time to go to a betting place, so I looked online.  Surely in this day and age it’s easy right?  And it sure was!  I only bet $50.  Why not?  It’s once a year and it even gets me excited, even though I wouldn’t know the slightest thing about horse racing.  My tactic for picking my winner was purely based on my view of the jockeys.  They interviewed each of them before the race, and there was only one hot one. 
Sex sells right? 😛

So I put $20 on that horse to place in the top 3.  I then out $10 each on three other horses (for winning places) that I just liked the sound of.  Of course, just like last year, the TAB collected my $50 and said ‘Haha you suck’ and are probably at the bottlo buying two rounds of bubbly with it right now.  I should just stay away from instincts and gambling.  It’s still exciting though.  Not to mention there was a split millimeter between first and second place – not that ANY of my four horses even made the top three.  Dumb horses.  I made a joke on facebook that my horse was probably still back at the starting gates eating grass.

Oh well that was a bit of fun.  I actually couldn’t sleep so stayed up to watch the race.  Now attemping to get a nap in before work so I’m not completely zombified by the time I get there.

I realised with the site I bet on that I get a ‘free bet’, and as I don’t expect to use it again for another year (who knows), so I threw the free ($20) bet on some horse on the race afterwards.  Completely random horse with hopeless odds 😛  It would be really ironically cool if that random said horse did make me the proposed $850 it pays out, if it happened to trip all the others over and go past the post first 🙂

Haha, yeah right.