Makybe Diva

Today was the Melbourne Cup. I had never heard of it before, but apparently it is the horse race of the year in Australia. I was invited by some other expat ladies to an event hosted by the Australian Association at the Happy Valley Race Course to have lunch and watch the race. We got there at 10:30 in the morning, and what did they give us? Coffee? Tea? No...Champagne or beer and sausages, mini pizzas, or quiches. Alot of the ladies had big flouncy hats on and frilly dresses and it was quite fun to look at all the ladies.

Next we headed inside to place our bets...I bet on Hug's Dancer and Pacific Dancer. It probab ly wasn't the most well thought out bet, since I just chose the two horses with names that ended with "Dancer", but hey, what was I supposed to do? I don't know anything about Australian horses. If it were American horses, now that would be a different story. :)

From there, we headed upstairs to have our lunch and watch the race. It was a gorgeous lunch, another multi-course extravaganza, and of course there was endless wine as usual. The race was...short. It was over before it started, really. The whole day-long hullabaloo for those short seconds of actual racing. Needless to say, I wasn't a winner. Pacific Dancer and Hug's Dancer really let me down this time! The winner was Makybe Diva, and the only person at our table who bet for that horse only put down 20 HK dollars! That is nothing! She won 6 HK dollars, which is less than 1 US dollar.

After lunch, I thought it was over, but no. Upstairs for more drinks and a jazz band. After a couple of hours, I really thought it was over. By this time it was dark, and we had been there since 10:30 am. I couldn't believe it when two of the ladies, one of them pregnant, suggested we go over to the Captain's Bar at the Mandarin Oriental. So...there we went. Those Australians really like to drink.