Romford Dog Track..

Last night I went to the dog tracks for the first time, so thought I'd share my experience with you. I didn't manage to take many photos I'm afraid. Was too busy bouncing up and down trying to keep warm! That and the fact that sometimes it's nice to just enjoy an experience, without worrying about snapping every minute of it? 
So since they closed the Walthamstow Stadium back in 2008, our nearest track is in Romford. I'd never gotten around to going to Walthamstow. My friends went a few times when we were younger, but for some reason I never went. Maybe it was worrying about how to get there and home again late at night? Or maybe it was past my curfew? I can't quite remember now! Unfortunately, like everything else that gets sold on, it's being turned into flats and a leisure complex!!
Picture from Google.
So anyway back to last night... We arrived around 7pm, paid £7 each to get in and headed over to the main grand stand. After a much needed toilet trip, grabbing a drink from the bar and putting on a bet, we headed outside to watch the first race.
Naturally we lost, but ended up winning on the second and fifth one so wasn't all bad! There were 13 races in total, the final one being at 10.40pm, so it's a nice long evening out. We stayed until the end and headed off once the last one had finished. It was Terry's dads birthday, so we went with his dad and step mum. She had gone inside after race 8 and fell asleep until we woke her to go home! 
All in all it was a fun evening. It's not always about the winning; it's the atmosphere, spending time with good company and enjoying a drink or two. It wasn't expensive and it's a different scenery compared to sitting in a pub Friday night?!

I have to admit I was a little worried at first... I've heard stories about the dogs and how many need rehoming once they can no longer win a race. It is sad and I feel sorry for them, no one should just be "dumped" when they're no longer wanted/needed, but this isn't always the case. While we were there, all dogs seemed happy and content. None of them looked unwell. All wagging their tails as they were being paraded around the track before the race.*

It's an event where you can dress however you like. Some people came suited and booted, other in tracksuits. I stuck to jeans, a nice top and a pair of boots. I forgot to take an outfit picture I'm afraid, but I did take a makeup one..
I kept it simple with a bit more of a smokey eye compared to normal and aneutral colour lipstick and gloss. 

Have you ever been to a dog track before? Or even the races? With Grand National hitting our screens in a few hours, have you ever been somewhere like it before?

Enjoy your weekend..

Love Hannah xx 

*I'm sorry if this post offends any of you and it was never intended too. As an animal lover myself, it's the last thing is hoped to do is upset someone. 

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4 comments

  1. What an interesting post, thanks for sharing! I have never been to a race, it's not that big in my country but it certainly sounds like fun even though the part about abandoning the dogs doesn't sound good, they should work on finding a solution for that. Your makeup looks stunning btw! xx

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    1. Thanks for the comment Mira :) and for the makeup compliment! Yeah it is worrying, but I did notice a lot of advertising around the stadium about rehoming. Doesn't make it any better I know, but at least it's something. Not all of them end up going to a home, a neighbour of mine has one with his work colleagues and he's always said when she gets too old to race he'll have her at home :) Hannah xx

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  2. i love the light smokey eyes.. oh btw, i saw one of your tweets the other day about how your attempts of publishing several posts kept failing. i hope they've successfully posted by now. but so do you write up and publish posts on your phone? i've tried that once but it didn't really work, with the photos resolutions going down and the text formatting getting all messed up. may i know how you make it work? it'd be great to be able to blog as you go :) thanks!

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    1. Hi Wynne, hope you're well? Thank you :) yeah luckily I managed to sort that out, this was one of them and the second was my Lush haul post. I didn't think about the photo resolution going down actually, so that's an interesting fact to be aware of. As for the text, yes unfortunately it does sometimes go all over the place. What I usually do, is write the post as I go on the app (add photos off my phone as I go too), when the post is finished I'll save as a draft and then log onto the laptop and just centralise the text and photos and publish. It is a lot easier doing it that way as it means when you have a spare 5 mins you can just add to your post. It's just the fiddling around after on the laptop, but since doing it it has made things a little easier. Hope that helps? Hannah xx

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