Seoul race horse track

On Sunday the 30th of May I dragged out my Korean friend for her first visit to a horse race track.  When I was younger one of my grandfathers used to race horses.  I wasn’t around them as much as I would of liked but I have fond memories of his horse(s), hanging out around the track with my family and watching him race.

Here we have a statue near one of the main entrance ways, I thought it was a nice touch:

One of the many outdoor sitting areas.  The shot of the Chandelier when seen from the outside is located inside the glass archway.

Also outside was the horse showing area (If memory serves me well there’s a specific word of term used for when the bring out the horses before the race but I can’t for the life of me remember it).   All of the pictures you see below were located in the main area along with the relaxing waterfall.  There were many little nooks and hiding spots everywhere you looked and the racetrack facilities allowed you to rent floor mats to sit on.  This allowed couples and individuals to setup underneath small tree’s in the shade and other various spots, really nice!

Below is the view from the second floor seating area.  Although difficult to see; the inside of the track had a small village setup for families and people new to the park that they could explore informational booths, various shops selling souvenirs and food.  We didn’t venture out that far but I may revisit the racetrack in the future:

Below we have an elevator floor plan from the 1st floor.  The 6th floor was reserved for owners but all the other floors were pretty similar.  Some indoor and outdoor seating, lots of large screen tv’s (some projection sized screens), food courts and small convenience stores.  This is where I bought myself a few beers, but unfortunately all they had was some form of Miller lite.  Not offend the miller lite drinkers but it was like drinking hot horse pee as far as I was concerned.

I was really in the mood to enjoy a few good beers while soaking up the atmosphere at the track. The bad beer was the only negative aspect of the whole day. In the pictures you can also get a sense of how popular the races are. Each floor was filled with Koreans of all ages placing bets, smoking cigarettes (inside and outside of the building) and yelling at the horses :-) You can also see the English betting guide and horse information guide they provide for us foreigners to gamble with.

Also included is our Korean food court meals; one order of noodles with black bean sauce, one order of soba noodle soup and one order of mandu.  All the food on this day was “average” but it’s to be expected form a racetrack food court.  Notice the yellow pickled radish.  It has a slightly sweet taste and is one of my favorite Korean side dishes to date.  It’s also served with almost every meal.  If you’re wondering what’s in the small drinking cup it’s some soya sauce used for dipping the mandu into.

We bet on a total of 5 or six races betting approximately 10 000 won a race (about 10$ Canadian).  Oddly enough we won on every race even though some of the bets we won we’re less than what we had placed. You could bet on a horse to win, to place (either 1st, 2nd or 3rd depending on the amount of horses racing) and then some other variations that I encountered for the first time called “qinchella” (not spelled correctly).  You had to pick two horses that would finish 1st and 2nd.  The odds of this happening were quite low so we were only betting 1 $ on those bets.

Most of the money we made was won by my Korean friend picking numbers or horse names that she liked and that horse winning the race!!  I was doing pretty good at the “will finish” portion but they tend not to pay as much.  I think this gave her the wrong impression of horse gambling in the sense that we walked away with an extra ten or 2000 won at the end of the day.  I’m confident she understood that it was beginners luck, but we still had a great old time at the track and she really enjoyed her introduction to horse racing!

Below we have one of the drains when exiting the horse track.  I thought it was a nice touch.

The horse races are every Saturday and Sunday from approximately 10:30 am to 6:30 pm. A great cheap way to spend the day if you’re not gambling too much! Just get off at the Seoul race horse metro stop and follow the crowds.