Racing For The Rubles

When I was in Moscow recently on a journalistic assignment, I took a day off from sputniks and Khrushchev to go to the trotting races at the Hippodrome. These races are different in Russia from the ones we know—curiously enough, they are not all sulky races, the horses being sometimes ridden just like our flat races. This lends them a little extra excitement. With me I took Valia, the young and pretty girl interpreter who had been placed at my disposal by Intourist. I could have gone alone if I wished, but I felt her services would be indispensable, even though she'd never been to the races before and didn't know a furlong from a fetlock.

The Hippodrome is little more than a mile from Red Square , at the far end of Gorky Street. The first race was at one o'clock, but I couldn't leave till 1:30, and our taxi then made slow progress through the holidaying crowds in the streets. It was the day after the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution and the whole city was still celebrating. Four races had been decided by the time we reached the course, but there were 12 on the program—one every 15 or 20 minutes—so I had lots of time to lose my money.

It was a brilliantly clear day. The long grandstand with its peeling yellow paint and crumbling ornamented decorations seemed to belong to the 19th century, as though it hadn't been painted or changed in any way since before the revolution. And very likely it hadn't been. There weren't many spectators, and almost all were men, most of them, it seemed, in black hats and black overcoats. In front of this peeling grandstand was the oval dirt track and, beyond it, a looming backdrop, rose the gray skyscrapers of Moscow .

Admission to the most expensive enclosure was only eight rubles—the equivalent of 80� at the effective rate of exchange. Cheaper stands, I had noticed, cost four rubles and two rubles. Valia and I, however, got into the best enclosure for nothing, by presenting two of the sightseeing coupons provided by Intourist before I left London .

The race cards informed me that I was attending the Bolshie Races, in honor of the "Fortieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution." I turned without delay to look at the list of horses for the next race. It's difficult enough, God knows, to pick a winner at the best of times, and I now found myself faced with choosing from the following:

1. ???a
2. ?pa???
3. Be?p??
4. Ha???
5. ?3?a?o?a????
6. ??p??

Seeking some kind of guidance, I asked Valia the meaning of the three lines of print at the top of the page. She had to ask for help to get an exact, knowledgeable translation, and she then wrote it down for me as follows: "Fifth run. 2:10 p.m. For foal and mare of eldest age. Distance 1,600 m., 900 points (540-270-90)." It wasn't any good my complaining that the foal-and-mare-of-eldest-age part didn't mean a thing; she insisted that was what it said. (I found out later that it was a race for colts and fillies over 4 years old.) The distance, 1,600 meters, would be once around the track, 11 yards short of a mile.

I asked about the points.

"That is prize money," Valia said. "Each point is worth 80 kopecks. The winning jockey receives 540 points, so he gets 432 rubles. The second and third jockeys get 270 points and 90 points respectively."

I didn't understand why they couldn't just put down the prize money in rubles, but instead I asked, tactlessly: "And how about the owners? How much prize money do they receive?"