I woke up on Saturday morning to find a brilliant blue sky broken with the lazy white clouds of a summer day. The events for this particular Saturday had been in the making for many weeks and we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. After spending the past week hunched over my macroeconomics textbook attempting to retain the seemingly endless number of graphical movements and formula derivations of economic policy, I was rewarding myself by spending the day out with my flat mates, Martin and Ellen along with Ellen’s two sisters, Beth and Lauren, at the York Races; the York social event of the season. We thought we would play the part of the very civilized English race, Champagne and all.
We strolled into town where the Saturday food market saw hundred of locals and tourists browsing the stalls. I accomplished one of my day’s goals in finding a straw hat at one of the stalls and completed my races outfit. We then proceeded to fill two baskets of picnic food at Marks & Spencer complete with blueberries, raspberries, watermelon, chips, baguettes, sandwiches and pasta salad. Of course we couldn’t forget to grab a bottle of bubbly, or four. Gathering our loot we found a taxi that would take all of us and our small grocery store with us to the racecourse two miles outside the city center. We arrived to find the crowds gathering, ladies in flashy dresses, big hats and feathers in their hair and men in suits. We made our way to the enclosure entrance, also known as the cheap bit where for £5 you can grab a patch of grass with your mates and plop down on a blanket to enjoy your own food and drink while keeping an eye on the finish line. We found an excellent spot near the enclosure railing and close to the finish line where we could watch the horses speed pass. We had an hour before the first race so we settled in and ate our food while enjoying the warmth of the sun and watching the crowds of spectators grow on both sides of the track.
The race for this Saturday was the 39th Annual Macmillan Charity Day and featured some of the horses that will be going on to the Royal Ascot, think Kentucky Derby but with the English aristocracy in tow—big hats and big bets! York racecourse is one of the biggest and most prestigious courses in the country, we even heard that some people fly their helicopters up from London to watch, crazy! To get in the right mindset I purchased the Race Post and an official race card that gave information on all of the horses in the various races. The first race, The Ladies Queen Mother’s Cup, started at 2:05 and awarded the winning jockey her bodyweight in champagne! The winner was Mull of Dubai ridden by Miss Katie Cooper and it was definitely an exciting race. We had excellent positions right against the barrier to the track and could even smell the horses as they sped by towards the finish. It wasn’t until the third race though that we really got excited about the results. The heat was starting to get to us and the fourth race was a ways off so we decided the third race would be our last; this meant it was the last chance to put down some cold hard cash. Now it’s true that you can go to the races and not bet any money but honestly you just don’t get the same surge of emotions, for better or worse, but luckily for me and Martin it was for the better. We chose our horses carefully, or at least Martin did, I just picked the one that had good odds at placing so I put down £5 each way on Parisian Pyramid. Well I’ll tell you, watching those horses come around the last bend and towards us and the finishing line, looking for my horse in the crowd while trying to hold on to my binoculars and camera was quite the task. It goes by so quickly I hardly knew what had happened except that my horse was near the front and that’s all that really mattered. It turned out that Martin’s horse came in first with Parisian Pyramid right behind him bringing me a nice little winning of £15, not too bad for my first race. It was in good spirits that we left the racecourse finishing off the last of our Buck’s Fizz and waving goodbye to the horses that served us well.
As the Coombs’ made their own way, Martin and I finished off the afternoon with a pint at a new pub for our ever-growing guide. We chose the Golden Ball, an out of the way pub across the Ouse but still in the city center. It was a nice little place that had the races showing on the tele, a selection of ales and a lovely little beer garden that for once had an emphasis on garden. After walking home through the leafy streets that have become so familiar I forced myself to read a bit more economics before dinner and then accompanied Martin into town for a couple of drinks with some old friends of his. It was a nice ending to a lovely day that turned out as perfect as I could have imagined it. An excellent reward for my hard work hitting the books for the upcoming exam, which I’m thrilled to say, is now over.
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