Saturday, June 23, 2007

cK at Woodbine Racetrack's Barbados Day

cK, N8 & D'ETTE SEE A HORSE RACE AND BET ON SLOTS

I always wanted to go to Woodbine Racetrack as a kid growing up in Rexdale and see the horse races, but I couldn't just go by myself. Nobody would go with me. Plus, back when I wanted to go, I didn't really have money to bet on a horse anyways! Fast forward 20 or so years and here we are. Since Guyana Day at Woodbine wasn't coming fast enough, we went to Barbados Day at Woodbine Racetrack! It had lots of fun, food and ... umm... Bajans!*

N8 Dogg and D'ette accompany me to the event. Mind you, we get there kinda late --- Hey! We are 'West Indian'!! We always go on island time! We figure if this is Barbados Day, they will be running on island time too!!

Apparently,they weren't.

At the entrance, we were greeted by the sounds of steel pans being played by Toronto's own, AfroPan. We travelled up the escalator and then saw the chaos and bedlam of people crowding the food court. We were really hungry, so we decided to get some food and chill out before going on to make bets. After eating our very-unscrumptious meal, we headed to the betting area.

N8 has betted before, but for some reason couldn't rememeber how to. D'ette was just like me and this was our first time, so we were hoping that N8 would show us how to do things. He was almost as clueless as we were. When we finally made an attempt to get in a line and place a bet -- it was for the LAST race. So we only had ONE chance at this. We looked at the names of the horses and we put our money seperately to increase our odds.

I betted on the number 6 horse called Chocolate Chunk or something like that. I just went with a random horse. N8 splitted his bets on a few horses and D'ette bet on a horse whom of which I cannot remember their name.

The race started, and from the grandstand, you kinda lose view of them in the distance. Everyone was kinda mumbling until the horses rounded the bend. That's when everyone got on their feet and started cheering really loud for their horses. My number 6 horse was running in second place.... inching and inching a win.... when right near the end it got beaten by another horse and placed 3rd.

I was excited, but apparently 3rd place doesn't pay anything.

N8 was upset and tore up his ticket. We went down to the slots area and played a bunch of machines to make more out of the trek to Woodbine. After eating all of my $5 in the slots, we were done and decided it was time to go home!

We didn't get to meet any of the advertised celebrities, nor did we even get to eat any "Bajan Food" as the flyer said. We did manage to have a good time.

*Bajan is the term referring to people from the island of Barbados. You don't refer to them as Barbadians.

D'ette & N8	View from the grandstand	Afropan playing steel pans