Santa Anita Park: Horse Racing

Santa Anita Park, horse racing. Santa Anita Park has free Fridays along with $1 beer, hot dogs, soft drinks and popcorn. Parking is $4. I headed over to the Park this last Friday, February 20th. It was a fun day at the park. If a person has a vacation day to burn or perhaps wants to take one of those “mental” sick days, this is a fun place to go for the day.

Note on parking. If you don’t mind walking, you can park outside and just walk in. It is a semi-long walk, but nothing crazy. I would have done this except for the fact that I had arrived a tad later than I wanted and wanted to place a wager on the first race.

Here’s a partial list of how my day went: I’m not one who bets a lot, but when it comes to horse racing I figured that is half the excitement. Now I’m not a person who is addicted to horse racing. This was actually the first time I’d gone to the races since 2005/2006. This time on the betting, I decided to bet on two horses per race. I figured I’d bet on one horse to win and another to show. This wasn’t exactly the best strategy. For the first race, I bet on De Brief Me to win. He ran third (show). One the second race, I decided to go with the obvious pick and went with Rail Trip to win. This horse did win, but I also bet on Racketeer and he arrived last. Since I was on a losing streak, I decided to go more conservative on the third race. I bet on Meteore and Congaree Park to show. I obviously wasn’t conservative enough, because Meteore placed third and Congaree Park placed eighth. I decided to go back to my original strategy on the fourth race. I bet on Bewitching Bartok to win. He came in fifth. For the fifth race, I got screwed. I told the person at the betting booth that I wanted to bet $5 on Motu Nui to win, but I was instead given a $2 ticket. Unfortunately, I didn’t complain about it (I just took the money that was returned to me), because Motu Nui did win. Oh well, even if I’d won more money, I still would not have made up my loses for the day. For the sixth race, I also got screwed. I asked to place a bet on Captain Kali to show, but was giving a ticket that said win. Once again, I didn’t complain and Captain Kali ended up in third. Darn. For the seventh race, I bet on Devoted Magic to win. The horse came in second. For the eighth and final race, I bet on Golden Delight to win. The horse came in dead last. OUCH. So I lost money on Friday. A couple errors made could have gotten me closer to even, but I still would have been underwater. Oh well.

Perhaps when I go back again, I’ll return to my more conservative strategy from 2005/2006, which is just to bet that a horse shows.