The Melbourne Cup carnival is done and dusted for another year.
While it might not rank with Flemington or Royal Randwick, my work colleagues and I headed to the Newcastle Racecourse for our (early) Christmas get together on Saturday.
Now, while I love all sports and don’t mind a bit of a punt on the horses, I’m not very good at it.
It would save me a lot of time if I just picked the neediest looking bookie, handed him all my cash and went home.
Anyway, as I had a bit of time to kill, I decided to make several small donations spread out over the day – rather than one large donation.
I had a flexi quaddie, where I picked two horses in the first and second leg, and three horses in the 3rd and 4th leg.
I got the first leg up (the second favourite) and the second leg (the odds on favourite).
I’ll fast forward to the last, where I had three horses, one of which I also had a small wager on to win.
The horse was called Fuchu. I kid you not – look it up if you don’t believe.
There’s probably a few ways to pronounce it, but by the last race, with a few bevvies under my belt, I probably picked the wrong pronunciation.
As they hit the straight, Fuchu was is in a three-way fight for the lead.
Like all punters, I believe that if I cheer for my horse loud enough, he will run faster.
In my mind, the horses are only in a canter until they hear me urging them on.
Then, it’s like the horse says to itself, “Oh, Brett is up there and he wants me to win. I’d better gallop a little faster”.
So I start urging Fuchu on. “Go Fuchu”, I say.
He seems to respond, but other punters are now urging on the other horses.
I get a bit louder to make sure Fuchu can hear me. “Go Fuchu” I yell, and he responds again.
But the other punters are just as keen for their horses to win.
With 100 metres to go and the race in the balance, I scream at the top of my lungs “GO FUCHU!”
It works and Fuchu salutes the judge, returning me $29.00 for my $10 outlay.
Unfortunately, an outsider got up in the 3rd leg, so I missed the quaddie. That’s racing.
And remember, there’s no such thing as too much sport!