Who knew that before I’d even had a chance to stick to the resolutions I’d made back in December, we’d be talking about spring racing.
Yet here it is again, as sure as day turns to night, as soon as we turn our clocks back (or forward, the phone just does it for me now, so, whatever), as soon as we start saying, “Oh my god where did the year go, it will be Christmas before we know it”, we start seeing pictures of gorgeous-looking fillies standing beside horses, oddly cheering at the sky with a glass of champagne in their hands.
Spring carnival, Melbourne’s own glittering annual event where horses run around in circles, is here again. But for me, this time it’s going to be different.
Last year I was so desperate to be invited into all the right hospitality tents I lost all sense of what spring carnival is really about. In fact, I spent so much of my day reapplying lipstick in the Portaloos and taking selfies, I mistakenly thought this mega, nation-stopping event was all about how you look.
I shared my confused disenchantment with a friend who is infinitely more switched on than I am, and she said, are you sure you’re not thinking of the Brownlow.
And I said, no, the carnival sweetie, the day when everyone wears a brightly coloured, sleeveless, above-the-knee dress even if it’s freezing and frequently it is, topped off, not with a sensible cardigan, and certainly not with a pair of warm tights, but a feathered fascinator that sits like a question mark perpendicular to one’s head.
Then they squeeze themselves onto the train at 11am, squeeze themselves off at Flemington, and spend the day wandering around a car park until someone who actually has a car space says do you want a champagne. If the Esky is full and the ice hasn’t melted yet and no one fell out with anyone last year for stealing their last bottle of sparkling burgundy, that’s probably where they’ll stay all day.
It’s all just so empty and lacking. I need more from my fake tan investment and blistered feet. So this year I’m going on the outer, because it just seems like there is maybe more fun to be had out there with the proletariat.
I’m going to take a picnic rug, a basket full of pink champagne and KFC and, unless I see Lara Bingle or Shane Warne (in which case I may be motivated to stand up and ask them to take a selfie with me) I’m going to sit there all day and watch every single race.
Hopefully I’ll pal up with a quartet of identically dressed, 20-year-old men who’ll help me pick the quinella. Or maybe I’ll latch on to a humorously themed gang, a bunch of friends who are all wearing hot pink or are dressed as court jesters or circus clowns on stilts.
At the stage when they all start pairing off for a pash, probably around 5pm once all the pink champagne is gone and the last race has run, I’ll have a little nap.
While workers pick up ticket stubs and empty Wild Turkey cans, and squeaky jockeys and Irish trainers congratulate themselves and their mothers in the background, sleeping-me and my pashing pals will get on the evening news.
That’s the plan anyway. It’s gonna be grouse.
