Belgrade Hippodrome
Belgrade has a fantastic racetrack for horse racing, the Beograd Hipodrom. Although it is well past its heyday, there's still an excellent atmosphere, with around nine races every sunday from 15:30, with a race every 30 minutes. The racing season is from April through to October. Naturally there's betting, we didn't win a thing though, although we placed around 22 bets throughout the afternoon. A minimum bet is 50 Dinar for a double or triple and 100 Dinar for a single bet on the winner.
The set-up offers a lovely relaxed atmosphere, with mild excitement when the horses approach the finishing line. Usually a harness race precedes a regular race, then another harness race and so on. There's country music playing (Patsy Cline «crazy») with the odd R&B or Hip Hop (Lil' Kim «put your lighters up») track thrown in. There's burgers we didn't try and nice cold beers.
On the ground you'll also find a few restaurants, so you can easily spend an entire sunday at the racetrack. As far as Belgrade's attractions go, the Hippodrome gets a five out of five star rating. It's been one of the best things we've done in a long time.
It seemed impossible to get any kind of information about the races, horses and times in advance. No updated website and no printed programmes to be found around town. Once you get there on sunday though, there's a full programme booklet for the day available at the gate.
FACTS:
The racing season: April - October
What: Horse races and harness races
Race lengths (in meters): 1100, 1200, 1600, 2200, 2600
When: Sundays from 15:30h
Where: Hipodrom, Paštoviceva 2, Belgrade, Serbia
Entry: Free
Betting: At the ground, a minimum bet is 50 Dinar (around 0.70 Euro), bets can be placed until a few minutes before the game (there's usually one or the other horse that doesn't run, -this is announced only shortly before each race).
Visit the Belgrade Hippodrome Gallery on Bundlebit.com for more photos
comments
ermel
@ 22.08.2006 23:17 CET
kev
@ 22.08.2006 23:39 CETadd a comment
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