Walking into Sha Tin Racecourse, the first thing that caught us off guard was the bathrooms. Immaculate, marble-finished, the kind of facility that makes you immediately understand where generations of losing bets have ended up. The first race didn't start until four. I found a seat and went to sleep. Jack stayed awake studying the form guide, working through odds and horse profiles with the focus of someone who had not, in fact, done enough research beforehand. When I woke up, we watched the pre-race parade. Some horses looked composed. Some were tossing their heads and clearly had opinions about the whole situation. Jack bet on three races by instinct. HKD$100 gone, the rough equivalent of four skewers of fish balls, before the afternoon was out. Then the gates opened. The hooves hit the ground and the sound travelled up through the stands before the crowd noise came in on top of it. In that moment, the losing didn't matter much. What we were watching was tens of thousands of people releasing everything they'd been holding, all at once, into the dust and noise of a ninety-second race.
We moved from the lower stands to a higher vantage point at some point during the afternoon. From up there, the full scale of the place became clear. Where you stand changes what you see. It also changes how you feel about being part of it.