IMAGINE if they called off the horse races. Not the whole day - just the bits involving the horses and the races.
Sydney Cup Day could still go ahead. Randwick would continue hosting Derby Day and the Doncaster.
There just wouldn't be any equine activity.
I genuinely don't think the crowd would notice. Not the bulk of racegoers, anyway - the ones who put the most time and effort into their outfits, who look forward to the autumn carnival all year, planning the event with a precision and passion worthy of a post-Christmas sales assault.
They wouldn't mind.
You might get a few trainers who were a bit cheesed off and there'd be some annoyed owners - but the Australian Jockey Club could just cut them a slice of the extra revenue gained from turning that big grassy oval in the middle of the stadium into a dance floor.
It's the only honest thing to do.
For, as anyone who's been sober near a horse race lately can tell you, a day at the track has little to do with horseflesh and absolutely no connection whatsoever to sport.
Here's the diary of a typical Sydney racegoer:
Get up at 6am.
Reapply fake tan.
Sort out which "chicken fillet'' goes into which bra cup.
Decide it doesn't matter, as long as they're both pumping up the cleavage.
Ponder whether G-string or commando works better with maxidress.
Decide maxidress doesn't maximise assets and switch to minidress.
Start on Bacardi Breezers (pink).
Text everyone with meeting time. Get to racetrack and switch to Bacardi Breezers (lime).
Wonder aloud where that horsy stench is coming from. Go to betting window, but get confused about whether trifecta beats royal flush.
Go back to bar. Get a hot dog with coleslaw, cheese and extra mustard. Be sick. Lie down on grass for a rest and stretch legs up in the air to make sure shoes are still on.
Try to remember if it was G-string or commando.
Give up in giggles.
Leave track for club.
Really, the horses are a big, unnecessary inconvenience.
Anyone who's really interested in racing is down at the TAB, or watching at home on pay TV, where the fifth at Randwick is just a prelude to the sixth at Sha Tin or the fourth at Ellerslie.
To spend a day at Randwick, as I did, is to marvel at the sheer economic irrationality of it all.
I'm not talking about the crowds.
They seem to make sensible purchasing decisions: that is, minimise the amount of money risked on gambling, so as to fully capitalise the more tangible investment in booze.
"F@#k these c*&%s for a joke,'' said one chap, as his chosen horse came home last. "I'm not wasting any more money. Let's go back to the bar.''
See? Quite rational. The economic madman in all this is the Australian Jockey Club (AJC), which runs the show.
No wonder it's having financial trouble and boardroom brawling: it's wasting a fortune on grass and stables.
The AJC would be sweet, if only it liquidated all that palaver and focused on core business _ the marketing and retail of alcohol.
Every moment of the day was saturated in booze. It was almost as debauched and degenerate as my Year 9 social, except with less bothersome subterfuge about the quantity of hard liquor and drugs.
A day at the races is a blue-light disco plus gambling; a party cruise minus the meningitis outbreak.
If you're not trashed, you're not having fun. If you can see the horses, you're not having fun - and if you're not having fun, you must be a nerd-wowser who just wants to spoil it for everyone else. That was me.
Maybe I should have armed myself with mace and plunged in, like American writer Hunter S.Thompson covering the "decadent, depraved'' Kentucky Derby of 1970:
"Thousands and thousands of raving, stumbling drunks, getting angrier and angrier as they lose more and more money.''
Thompson woke up three days later, with no memories beyond the scribblings in his notepad, which he pieced together to create a new school of experiential, pharmaceutical journalism, called gonzo.
If Thompson hadn't blown himself away in 2005, he'd have enjoyed meeting the inhabitants of Randwick: the hotpantettes on Segway scooters handing out stubby-holders; the lady in black staggering down the members' steps, adjusting her scanties with one hand and talking on the phone with the other, all without spilling a drop of Jim Beam.
He could have met the young mother dressed in gorgeous vintage, the sweet girls on their hens' day with homemade sandwiches, the photographer who remarked how nice it was that all the girls observed the black-and-white dress code with their hooker-chic outfits.
And he could have peered with me into the Salvation Army donation box, where the cash was jingling merrily.
There were plenty of $5 and $10 notes - proof that these sensible racegoers know exactly where to make calculated investments for the future: drug and alcohol rehabilitation services.
Hunter would have loved it.
