Winning post?

After our visit to Le Petit Pressigny on Sunday morning Pauline and I set off to meet friends for an afternoon at the races at nearby La Roche Posay. We have been there a few times now but it was our friends' first time - they were impressed! They were also lucky, with a misplaced bet (wrong number chosen) ending up netting them 98 euros for their 2 euro bet. I was hopeless - probably as I was trying to make sense of the race-card. It is really odd - the first race, which we missed, seemed ok with a variety of named horses competing in a flat race.The next was horse and chariot (is that what they're called?) where all the names of the horses began with 'U'  then a flat race again where the horse's names either began with 'T' or 'S'.Then two races again where they were all 'T again',one for 'P' 'Q' and 'R's and the final race all 'S's If anyone out there can enlighten me, I'd be grateful. Are they named for the day? Avoiding the taxman? Plus the 'form' of the horses was all over the place - few had ever won a race. Maybe they trawl the country looking for horses with  names that begin with a particular letter and who haven't won a race, to give one of them their first win - no, that would be too complicated!

click to enlarge

As an example of how bad my selections were can be seen in the pic. above, I only just got my horse into the frame with another runner - you wont be surprised to know it did not make up the distance and remained last!

I remembered too late that my most successful bet here on previous outings had been when I picked  the horse who had the jockey with the ugliest costume! Anyway we all agreed it is a pleasant and fun way to put in an afternoon, especially if you win!

You can sample the atmosphere here 

and here