Today, the harness racing track near Gothenburg was holding on of its big yearly races (Åby’s Stora Pris), and as the weather was quite nice, my father and I decided it would be fun to lose some money that way.
We bet every week, of course, but actual race track visits are usually limited to a few during the summer, so its a bit of a special treat. I quite enjoy being able to watch the warm-ups live, as I have a decent eye for a horse that looks good (or not so good) on the day, and even if we rarely win all that much (mostly because we keep the betting to very low sums), its still very exciting. Especially, of course, the big races, and this year they had changed the main attraction so that it was run as two initial heats, and if each heat had a different winner, it was concluded with a final, deciding heat.
To help us along, I had printed out a bunch of information from various betting sites on the Internet, and this turned out to have been a good idea today, as I managed to nail a winner at 38 times the money. Unfortunately, my dad was going to bet a bit more than me on the same horse, but just as they punched his bet in, the race started, and it ended up not going through. Very annoying, that. I also had the same horse on our V75 system, so it was a bit of a nuisance that I didn’t manage to nail the easier ones after finding the big surprise of the day. 600000 kr would have been rather nice, and close but no cigar has been the theme of the last weeks for me as far as betting goes.
Still, I did manage to find another semi-surprising winner (at 7 times the money) in a later race, one I picked purely on seeing it during the warm-up, and thats always fun. Although a lot of people who ride don’t care much for harness racing, I find most horse-related sports interesting, and I like to learn as much as I can about all of them. Should I ever win a larger sum of money, I’d definitely invest some in a harness racing horse. After I buy myself a riding horse, of course. Have to keep my priorities straight. ;)
Oh, right, what about Åby’s Stora Pris? As hoped for, the two favourites won one heat each, and faced off in a final, deciding heat in which Gidde Palema fairly easily defeated Steinlager.