On Wednesday the 2nd of March 2005 LeanneThomson (Manager of Winform Publishing), Belinda Robinson(Garry Robinson (Editor of Horse Racing Australia) daughter) and myself (Customer service assistant) attended the races at Newcastle, this was my very first outing to the races and we had a great afternoon. Being a major race day there were lots of people there, some dressed up and some dressed down. Feeling a little lost we made our way to the Members area and with our passes shown we were let in. It was great in the member's area as it was mostly air conditioned, the only problem being the lack of seats. We arrived late as we had to make sure all the Member orders were posted and ratings services were done correctly, and WA races and selections adjusted for scratchings, therefore we didn't arrive until just prior to race 4. We had our list of ratings that Garry had printed up for us, and Leanne got our Staker out and proceeded to work out our bets with the Dutch betting software, to bet on as many horses as possible to make 100% profit or more. Our first bet was in race 4, we decided only to place $10 dollars at a time as it was mostly a learning experience for myself, so the staker worked out wich horses and how much to place on each horse for us. We ended up with the first three horses from the winform ratings and we would make around 92% profit, here is our bet as we placed it:

RACE 4 NO. 3 SPRINGBALL placed 2nd
NO. 7 FUJI UNKAI placed 3rd
NO. 5 FOXY PHIL placed 1st and paid $8.70

We placed all selections for the win only, and we ended up making a profit of $9.70 for my first bet. Then came the fun part, collecting my first lot of winnings. The TAB lady was so excited for me as we placed the bet with her prior and had filled her in on it being my first time at the races, she had a big smile on her face as I approached her, and was quite happy to pose for the camera. After the race we realized if we had have placed a trifecta bet my first win would have been about $250.00 but I was still happy with my win as it allowed us to keep betting on the following races. We still stuck to placing our $10 on the next two races, on as many horses as we could to make 100% profit or more. However in race 7 we decided to place money only on our top rated horse as an each way bet:

RACE 7 NO.12 AMEX lost

And we lost our money, if we had have stuck to our plan as we had done for our previous four bets we would have won, as the next rated horse no.4 Patezza won the race. It just goes to show that in order to be a successful punter, you need to stick to your strategy and don't change your mind in the heat of the moment. My first race day was great fun and I learnt heaps.