It was a Wednesday and I got a WhatsApp invitation from our Pune Expats Group to attend a group gathering at the horse race track that following Sunday. Now one thing I have learned in India is don’t expect too much notice about anything. If there is a party on Friday, you are lucky if you hear about it the week before. Holiday celebrations? Put the decorations up the day of. Need an altar or some food for a sacrifice, buy it on the day you are using it. As a planner, this drives me crazy. So only having a few days lead time isn’t much — but honestly, we didn’t have anything else besides church going on that day. Second, Pune has a horse race track? Sure enough it did AND I had actually been there before and just didn’t know it. The spring beer festival that we also hastily attended was held there. We walked around in mud, drank some local beers, had some hot dogs, and listened to a band. It was crowded and loud, not to be our experience this time around.
So we show up at 1pm which is when the event was supposed to start. Another thing in India – everything starts later or arrives later than expected. We were the first ones there. We said our names, and of course not on the list (nor were our other friends who were attending). Then the ultimate offense — I was wearing shorts. The invite required us to wear “smart casual”. Thinking I was back in the US I thought a collared shirt, a nice pair of shorts, and boat shoes would be a shining example of American smart casual. Judge for yourself if you think this is inappropriate for a Indian race track.
Even Tenley is like “why are you giving him a hard time”. So security after pretty much telling us to leave because I was wearing shorts, called our ExPat leader who eventually talked them in to allowing us to enter. Once in, we saw many people in shorts and some in just gym wear. Oh well.
I have to admit we had a great time. The horse races didn’t start till 2:30. The area they had our group in was exclusive and had free appetizers and drinks. There was also a band playing so we got to dance to a few songs too.
This is a picture I took of the clubhouse area. They had us inside the white fenced area and we had couches and booths for us to sit at. I still to this day don’t know who sponsored our event but I think it was a local real estate developer. Nothing beats free though!
We ran in to some interesting people too.
We asked this guy if he is from Seattle. He looked at us with confusion. We said how long have you been a Seahawks fan. Again, confusion. We brought up his hat and he started laughing “oh i bought this off some street vendor because I needed a hat for the sun today”. Pretty funny and a nice hat for 25 cents.
Does anyone know this guy who we also met?
We had no idea who he was either until I google searched him when we got home. He is a very famous Bollywood actor from the 80s and 90s named Jackie Shroff. He was very nice and humored us with a picture. As with everyone in India he really liked Tenley. So we got to meet our first Indian celebrity!
The rest of the afternoon was fun. I still can’t figure out the betting books but alot of our friends were putting down 100, 200, and 300 rupee bets. Even some of the kids were running around trying to make bets — and I think some actually were able to.
Most of the horse names were similar like you would see in the US. You know things like Sir (insert name here), Raj’s Crown, Second Chances, etc. Very few Indian names which surprised me. The races ran every 30 minutes and so we watched about 4 from both the grandstands and right by the track. Tenley loves seeing the “nays” as she called them.
We left around 4pm to get back home before the busy week began. But it was quite an experience…free food, free drinks, a celebrity sighting, and lots of fun watching horses outrun each other. I would definitely want to come back again and this time I will wear trousers!
Richey's Travel Adventures 