Hey Sweeties,

I don’t know if it’s really ever been mentioned on here, maybe briefly in my Five things to do in the Peak District post, but Ian and I really enjoy going to the races. We don’t do the kind whereby we dress ourselves up to the nines (although he has promised we will eventually make it to Royal Ascot), because to be honest it’s a bit unnecessary for your everyday meeting, but we go, have a small flutter on the horses, and enjoy ourselves!

Every now and again, a couple of our local (ish) race courses bring in artists and bands for a small gig and back in December we heard that Bryan Adams was coming to Sandown this August. At the time we weren’t married but we were fairly sure that Everything I do (I do it for you), was going to be the first dance at our Wedding in April, and while I am not a big fan of Bryan Adams, I am a fan so I jumped at this opportunity.  And after several months of waiting, the date finally arrived to spend the afternoon at Sandown watching the racing, followed by the concert and I’ve got to say, it was brilliant!! Oftentimes when we go racing, the weather is not the best, it’s either a bit rainy, and/or dry but windy whereas on Thursday, the weather was excellent and made for a perfect summers evening at the races.

I am not going to promote or go into detail about betting on my blog, but what I will say (in case you are interested) is that Ian and I both only spend about £20 across all of the races, betting £2 or so on each race. We don’t go to win big, but making back what we bet, with a little extra profit does the job fine for us fine. People use many methods on the day to pick out the horses they think will win; for me, I narrow down a couple of horses to look at from the write ups in the Racing Post, mostly by how they have run recently, and then I go out to the parade ring and make my decision based on how the horses look on the day. I am no expert, but I am pretty good with horses having spent much of my life riding them, so I often get a good feel for which ones I think will do well but this of course is no guarantee. On Thursday I can report I did well with my predictions!

Mr Dettori!

One of the things I hate about normal music concerts, is waiting for frickin’ ages for the act or band to come out on stage and I think it’s so bad when acts leave their audiences waiting for an unnecessary amount of time. I am also not a big fan of really long gigs so while I often enjoy listening to them, my legs get tired after a while for standing so long. This wasn’t a problem when I was a teenager as I spent many an evening at concerts. Anyway, I can report that Bryan Adams was fantastic! He arrived on stage promptly at 20:45 (the last race finished about 20:30), and while we thought he would quickly play some hits and leave, he performed for two hours, pretty much going through his archive of the last 35 years! He played all the greats –including of course, Everything I do (I do it for you), which I sobbed to throughout! – as well as some tracks from his new album. You literally could not fault him for anything and I had no problem standing for that long!

Bryan, if you’re reading this (which you’re not, of course); you’ve still got it buddy!

Do any of you guys enjoy going to the races and/or music concerts?

Until next time x