Berlin - Picnic at Hoppegarten

Last year our friends mentioned how they spent a wonderful day picnicking near race tracks and inspired us to join them, so we were on the lookout for the event’s repetition when we saw the “Grand Season Opening” news a week ago. We quickly bought our tickets and enlarged this year’s party on the grass.

Hoppegarten Racecourse is on the outskirts of Berlin, in the middle of nature. It took us one and a half hours to get there. We took a bus for the last leg of the trip because the usual s-bahn was out of service and was replaced by the bus.

The venue’s Easter Sunday motto was “Colourful Easter Races” and the day was designed for families and children's entertainment. There was a hunt for Easter eggs but I think we missed it. You can see the pony riding for kids. There were also Easter bunnies and Easter lamb, a small sheep and goat pen for the little ones to pet.

You can see the food stalls with everything you can wish for from a local festival. We ate Wiener Backhendl, which became our breakfast at 13 pm. In the middle of the food court, the music pavilion housed a lovely band that completed the festive atmosphere.

The hippodrome’s elegant red brick buildings looked like they'd hosted many an exciting day like this. I wished the two analog tote boards, or totalisators were still in operation. It’d be fascinating to watch the odds being updated.

At 14 pm, we were ready to watch our first race. We picked our favourites and took our place closest to the tracks. It was an absolute thrill to hear the noise of the crowd slowly rising, feel the ground rumbling, and watch the magnificent horses galloping past. It’s an additional thrill when your favourite wins the race (you can hear my scream at the end of the first race).

The weather was perfect. The sun wasn’t too hot because, as we learned the crazy fact from our friends, Saharan dust, from thousands of kms away, was apparently hanging in the air (link below). We chilled, we ate, we enjoyed the creative horse names like “Look At Me”, “Koffi Kick”, “Ageless Lips”, we cheered, and at times we napped.

For our last race, we watched the horses up close in the parade ring and followed them with their riders from the paddock to the race track. On the way I told ‪@boundless-adventures‬ that I picked the mare number 4 called “Szia”, because of her high shoulders and the business face of her rider, out of sheer intuition (of course I had no knowledge of horses), and to my delight she won that race.

https://www.hoppegarten.com/racing/re...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tote_board
https://www.dw.com/en/sahara-dust-clo...