This has been the week of important races, both foreign and domestic. The mad hysteria of the Melbourne Cup came and went followed by the mad hysteria of the American presidential election. Both were very entertaining to watch and produced close results.
How do you stop a nation dead in its tracks? The answer is to hold a horse race. The first Tuesday of November in Australia is Melbourne Cup Day, the most important and prestigious trophy in Australian horse racing, not to mention the most lucrative. Its called the "Race that Stops a Nation" and it really does. Everyone, or virtually everyone, in Australia has the day off and watches the race which goes at 15:00. In Canberra, the day is a public holiday called "Family and Community Day", which is really funny if you think about it. Just to show you how big this race is, I once read a statistic that 80% of Australian adults, that's roughly 12 million people, place a bet on the Melbourne Cup on Melbourne Cup Day.
I was asked to work with ACTTAB at the Jamison outlet and right from opening it was a busy day. I didn't mind since I got double pay for that day, roughly $46.50/hour. I helped people place bets and generally had a pretty good time. All ticket windows were going and it was non-stop until the race jumped. I had a bit of fun, though. One lady walked up to me and asked, "How do I fill in this card?", referring to a Cup Pack card which gives several bets on the horses selected. To which I replied with some sarcasm, "With a pen." For those interested, the types of bets were a quinella (1st and 2nd, any order), a boxed trifecta (1st, 2nd and 3rd, any order) and an each way (particular horse to win or place (2nd or 3rd)). I even had a very proud moment. One man, a serious better, ran up with only a few seconds until the race jumped. After the gates open and the race begins, no more betting is allowed and if this guy didn't get his bet on, I knew he would be right cheesed-off. He put his betting card through the reader but realized he had made an incorrect selection and asked me to change it. I went into overdrive, changed the selection, pressed enter and no more than half a second later, the race jumped. I had gotten the bet on! I don't think it paid out in the end.
Once the race started, everything came to a halt. Employees and patrons alike stood and watched as the race was run. In the end, it was the closest finish in Melbourne Cup history with the winner winning by less than 5 cm. It was a long shot too, paying at 1.00:48.00! There were some major winnings that day and I paid one man over $11 000. Guessing the exact trifecta would have netted you over $22 000 while getting the first four (NSWTAB does this but not ACTTAB) would have paid better than $550 000! What I could do with that kind of money; what could anyone.
There are some bizarre traditions on Melbourne Cup Day, flowing from the British experience. Women get dressed up in fancy dresses and where funny hats called fascinators. Then they proceed to get drunk and stagger out of the venue with no shoes. This is not just at Flemington Racecourse where the Melbourne Cup is held, but all over Australia. Different races happen that day at various venues across the country so race tracks are open everywhere. They all have live coverage of the Melbourne Cup so everyone gets dressed up. Men sometimes where top hats but get drunk. Actually, it ends up being a right old mess, but fun all round.
In the other big race of the day, the favourite came first. Barack Obama beat out John McCain to become the first African-American to be President. To be fair, he's only half black but I don't think that diminishes in any way his accomplishment. Also, his father is a Muslim and though it was not a major issue during the campaign, it still must have been at the back of many voters' minds. Nonetheless, I think that this speaks to the best aspects of American culture and psyche.
Last week, I forgot to mention that I received an award from Fenner Hall. Every year there is a sporting awards show called Spartos which honours those who have made a significant contribution to the Fenner Hall sporting community. I was at university all day that day and didn't get the invitation until after I got back and well after the awards ceremony was done. It turns out I had been given an award for trivia and helping Fenner tie with Johns (another residence) for first earlier in the year. The win was not without some controversy, the question in question involving which of Shakespeare's plays was written first to which there is no clear answer. When I found out about the award, I was naturally surprised. I was even more surprised when I was handed the award and noticed that my last name had been misspelled "Dizioba". Of all the Ukrainian names in history, I had to get stuck with the most difficult to spell and pronounce one.
With Christmas decorations up I got to thinking how many people actually celebrate Christmas as a summer holiday. Christmas , New Year's and the like are summer holidays on half the Earth's surface, the southern hemisphere, but it contains far less land than the northern hemisphere. It turns out about 10% of the world's population, roughly 700 million people, has Christmas in summer. This includes cities like Canberra, Darwin, Sydney, Melbourne, every other Australian and New Zealand city, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Johanessburg, Bloemfontein (try and find it), Cape Town and many others. What a crazy hemisphere!
How do you stop a nation dead in its tracks? The answer is to hold a horse race. The first Tuesday of November in Australia is Melbourne Cup Day, the most important and prestigious trophy in Australian horse racing, not to mention the most lucrative. Its called the "Race that Stops a Nation" and it really does. Everyone, or virtually everyone, in Australia has the day off and watches the race which goes at 15:00. In Canberra, the day is a public holiday called "Family and Community Day", which is really funny if you think about it. Just to show you how big this race is, I once read a statistic that 80% of Australian adults, that's roughly 12 million people, place a bet on the Melbourne Cup on Melbourne Cup Day.
I was asked to work with ACTTAB at the Jamison outlet and right from opening it was a busy day. I didn't mind since I got double pay for that day, roughly $46.50/hour. I helped people place bets and generally had a pretty good time. All ticket windows were going and it was non-stop until the race jumped. I had a bit of fun, though. One lady walked up to me and asked, "How do I fill in this card?", referring to a Cup Pack card which gives several bets on the horses selected. To which I replied with some sarcasm, "With a pen." For those interested, the types of bets were a quinella (1st and 2nd, any order), a boxed trifecta (1st, 2nd and 3rd, any order) and an each way (particular horse to win or place (2nd or 3rd)). I even had a very proud moment. One man, a serious better, ran up with only a few seconds until the race jumped. After the gates open and the race begins, no more betting is allowed and if this guy didn't get his bet on, I knew he would be right cheesed-off. He put his betting card through the reader but realized he had made an incorrect selection and asked me to change it. I went into overdrive, changed the selection, pressed enter and no more than half a second later, the race jumped. I had gotten the bet on! I don't think it paid out in the end.
Once the race started, everything came to a halt. Employees and patrons alike stood and watched as the race was run. In the end, it was the closest finish in Melbourne Cup history with the winner winning by less than 5 cm. It was a long shot too, paying at 1.00:48.00! There were some major winnings that day and I paid one man over $11 000. Guessing the exact trifecta would have netted you over $22 000 while getting the first four (NSWTAB does this but not ACTTAB) would have paid better than $550 000! What I could do with that kind of money; what could anyone.
There are some bizarre traditions on Melbourne Cup Day, flowing from the British experience. Women get dressed up in fancy dresses and where funny hats called fascinators. Then they proceed to get drunk and stagger out of the venue with no shoes. This is not just at Flemington Racecourse where the Melbourne Cup is held, but all over Australia. Different races happen that day at various venues across the country so race tracks are open everywhere. They all have live coverage of the Melbourne Cup so everyone gets dressed up. Men sometimes where top hats but get drunk. Actually, it ends up being a right old mess, but fun all round.
In the other big race of the day, the favourite came first. Barack Obama beat out John McCain to become the first African-American to be President. To be fair, he's only half black but I don't think that diminishes in any way his accomplishment. Also, his father is a Muslim and though it was not a major issue during the campaign, it still must have been at the back of many voters' minds. Nonetheless, I think that this speaks to the best aspects of American culture and psyche.
Last week, I forgot to mention that I received an award from Fenner Hall. Every year there is a sporting awards show called Spartos which honours those who have made a significant contribution to the Fenner Hall sporting community. I was at university all day that day and didn't get the invitation until after I got back and well after the awards ceremony was done. It turns out I had been given an award for trivia and helping Fenner tie with Johns (another residence) for first earlier in the year. The win was not without some controversy, the question in question involving which of Shakespeare's plays was written first to which there is no clear answer. When I found out about the award, I was naturally surprised. I was even more surprised when I was handed the award and noticed that my last name had been misspelled "Dizioba". Of all the Ukrainian names in history, I had to get stuck with the most difficult to spell and pronounce one.
With Christmas decorations up I got to thinking how many people actually celebrate Christmas as a summer holiday. Christmas , New Year's and the like are summer holidays on half the Earth's surface, the southern hemisphere, but it contains far less land than the northern hemisphere. It turns out about 10% of the world's population, roughly 700 million people, has Christmas in summer. This includes cities like Canberra, Darwin, Sydney, Melbourne, every other Australian and New Zealand city, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Johanessburg, Bloemfontein (try and find it), Cape Town and many others. What a crazy hemisphere!
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