There’s hardly a person to be seen in uptown Coffs Harbour as it is the 7th August and it’s Coffs Golden Cup Race Day!

I, together with my daughter have decided to join the crowd at the local races to do what everyone else does, bet on horses. But there is one big problem, I have no idea about how to bet on horses, nor does my daughter.

On entry into the racing club, I spotted a local business colleague, so I approached him. “Steve, how are you, can you spare me a minute?” With a surprised look, he responded, “Yes”.

“Steve like everyone else here today we want to enjoy ourselves and bet on some races, but I have no idea how to read the racing guide, can you give me a quick lesson?” He took hold of the racing guide clutched lovingly in my hand and begins to explain in what I would describe as a true punter style, which went in one ear and directly out the other. All I could comprehend was how much money the various horses had won and thought “hey this could be fun”.

The colleague standing with Steve at the time looked at my astounded facial expression and said: “if all fails just pick the horse that has the best-coloured silk shirt on the jockey”. Now that is my type of betting, simple but fun.

I hurriedly went back to the corporate ten to join my daughter, colleagues, and clients, where I proceeded to explain what I had learned about betting.

It appeared that my ability to demonstrate what I had learned was not sufficient for my daughter, but she too caught on about how much money the various horses had won. So she became our official runner to the TAB to do the betting.

Her strategy proved to be highly successful, as we won or came second in every race. She learned very quickly the importance of betting ‘win and place’ after the first race, where she had put the bet on a ‘win’ only and it came second. If we had bet ‘win and place’ our take home precedes would have amounted to some real money for the day.

You certainly couldn’t put a price on the day as overall we had the best time ever, jumping about grabbing one another when we could see our horse nearing the finishing line. We must have looked like two women off their faces, but hey we were enjoying ourselves.

A few days later I ran into Steve and he asked, “How did you go to the races?” To which I replied “we had a blast, we won $’s in every race” he replied; “great, you must have come out with heaps of money!” “Well not really as we only bet $1 to win and place”. He didn’t’ have to respond to the look on his face said it all.

However, for us, it was the best day ever!

We will be back next year and this time we will go the full hog and bet at least $2 each way!