Tell Me Your Horse Racing Tales!!

My uncle used to own a racehorse, but sold it after his wife had to get a job to pay for it's "underwater leg therapy." Now he just sends his nights in his office with two TVs simulcasting satelite races, placing bets over the phone to his bookie.

(Best racing joke ever: an irate owner runs up to the jockey after his horse finishes up the track. 'I thought I told you to be in the middle of the pack down the backstretch, start your move entering the turn, come up on the leaders at the quarter pole, and drive strong down the stretch'. Jockey answers with a straight face 'and leave the horse??')

Rode some show/pleasure horses later and it was there I learned once and for all that wagering on what any horse will do in the space of two minutes or so is generally a losing proposition. (Pleasure horses: S: Saddlebreds, (post-racing) standardbreds, D: thoroughbreds (too high-strung)).

I don't think most of the big farms give tours anymore, but Kentucky Horse Park was fun the couple times I went. Keeneland was the nicest track I ever went to (never made it to Saratoga).

You don't have to eat them, y'know.

Picturing a line of sleek Fidos being watched by Westminster Kennel Club wannabes.

i mis going to the track :( nothing like a day at the races as long as you're not losing it all

All my horse racing memories have been clouded by the eventual alcohol-fuelled debauchery. Especially the year when I spent my Melbourne Cup winnings in one afternoon/night of drinking.

is hollywood park destined to close? it's no santa anita but any racetrack closing is a sad thing

i went to moonee valley today and won four out of five races. my only loser? CHIEFCOMINGFIR

I am having my first track experience! I made my first bet in the 'ballerina' race for a horse to show and I won! Yay :)

Net gain for the day:$7.75. Wooh!

watch out for earthquakes!

http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/082711Stmt

I don't why but I was thinking about the time when arguably one of the most crooked national hunt jockeys of the 20th century, Graham Bradley, was in a three horse race and it was something like: he was going way too good, at least half a dozen lengths ahead and approaching the last 3 jumps and then the fucker did the worst ever impression of being unseated from his saddle - from memory he practically just jumped off the horse, which quite laughably I think even got through a stewards enquiry! I was looking for it on youtube for lols seeing as memory is never reliable, but to no avail. After he got banned from horseracing, when it was reported on the SIS channel that he had signed on for Jobseekers allowance, there was spontaneous uproarious cheering in the bookies a friend of mine was working in!

I found a clip of when he pulled up Man Mood in '96 (in the Oliver Cromwell stakes!) in a 3 horse race, so maybe that is the one I'm mixing up with another of his fixed races, because there were so many! It was outrageous, he clearly stopped the horse when he was 12-15 lengths in front in an uncompetitive 3 horse race that was playing out like the procession the odds suggested it would, then he just blatantly slows the horse down and he pulls him up before the last jumps when there is clearly nothing wrong with the horse. Lol there was daily corruption in plain sight in 90's UK racing .

and also suspiciously large bets had been staked on course on the rank outsider that eventually trundled over the finish line 5 minutes later.