a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Sunday, June 04, 2006 A Day at the Races Hoppegarten on the outskirts of Berlin has cut-rate horse racing every several weeks in the summer, and today, on an all-blogger field trip that included Ed Ward and Bowleserised, I won just about enough for a cup of coffee. Ed remembers Hoppegarten from the days when it was virtually still a DDR track, and Bowleserised is a horse expert. All I could do was nod my head. In my triumphant fourth race, Romantic Man pulled ahead of River Woods to surprise everyone and hand me a winning ticket; but here I think we're watching Pushy Guest shove in front of Tassilio and Miss Anita for a Sieg in the second. UPDATE: Hoppegarten has its own stud farm, and most of the horses are local, although some come from Poland and Sweden and even the United States. Horses have raced here for almost 130 years. Nazism and Communism managed to kill the glamor of the place, but Louise Brooks remembered the track as a high-society attraction as late as the 1920s. The context -- since we're quoting Brooks -- is sex: "Sex was the business of [Berlin]," she wrote. "At the Eden Hotel, where I lived, the cafe bar was lined with the higher-priced trollops. The economy girls walked the street outside. On the corner stood the girls in boots, advertising flagellation. Actor's agents pimped for the ladies in luxury apartments in the Bavarian Quarter. Racetrack touts at the Hoppegarten arranged orgies for groups of sportsmen." It ain't like that now, I'm afraid. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:23 PM
Comments:
Turf racing rocks. I wish they did it more in the Pacific Northwest. But a day at the races is like a weekend in Vegas...if you don't own somehing, expect that you're going to lose.
e
Like owning racehorses is a profitable business? *shakes head* Where else do you think half the GDP of Dubai went? Straight into very expensive hores poo, that's what. I'd love to see if the Makhtoum family's in-put/out-put from decades of involvement in the sport balance out. I doubt it...
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Anyhow, Mike, beginner's luck. It's like the force - you must use it wisely. And bet to win, because it'll work if it's the first time you did it. | |
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