Racegoers enjoy the atmosphere during the New Zealand Trotting Cup at Addington Raceway. Photo / Getty Images
The usual rules don't apply on Cup Day.
Dreadlock suits, collared neck tattoos. Sparkly pretty frocks offset by the one-hand clutch of two McKenna cans.
It's the day where the great and good collide with the rest.
The biggest event on the Canterbury social calendar.
It always starts so well. Pucker. Well, as pucker as red-and-blacks can generally get.
Hazy sunshine. More than 22,000 people. On the Lindauer Lawn, fake tans smear with roofers' short-sleeves.
One former fan of an ex-All Black halfback says you should never meet your heroes.
Brian Campbell encountered 2011 Rugby World Cup super-sub Stephen Donald.
"Beaver ain't caught f*** all whitebait this season," says the 43-year-old from Rangiora.
Times have changed. Hardly an Aertex shirt or Akubra hat in sight. Just look at the food on offer. No longer just lukewarm pies and sauce-dipped hotdogs, but tacos, crayfish sandwiches, spicy bratwurst, salads (!) and frappes.
No queues for free water. Seven deep, fifteen wide at the cash bar. $5 plastic beers.
I can confirm that Best Dressed Woman was exactly that.
And Best Dressed Man was actually Best Dressed Beard.
Silks Bar on level two of the Metropolitan Stand is a haven of maturity. Studied racebooks, serious discussion over who was better: Terror to Love or Iraklis. A slow trawl of the buffet.
Outside meanwhile, behind the stand, watch your footing: spilt beers, tears, cracked plastic cups, the occasional body.
"Let's go f*** the s***!" one teen tie-wearer screams deliriously, sending pointy-shoed hipsters swerving.
"You're insane-o Shane-o!"
The easterly is up. Teetering girls now have a quandary: when the gust comes, with my one spare hand, do I save my fascinator, or keep my dress from upturning?
Captain America and Spiderman are on hand to help.
"Are you drunk?"
"Um, yeah."
"Cool."
Superheroes.
One experienced racegoer returns to his umbrella table at 2pm.
"Lads, we have an issue: two beer limit now in force ... though, probably fair enough as it's looking pretty feral in there."
Mid-afternoon the race distance is sorting out the stayers from the rookies.
Heels switch from feet to hands. Divorce looms. Bull-necked blokes charge beeline towards the bar. One beer limit.
"Toilets?" one woman asked a yellow-vested security guard.
Ho ho, he smirks. "You get to use those lovely ones there."
A mysterious smell of bubblegum.
By 5.15pm, when the Christchurch Casino New Zealand Trotting Cup jumps, things have taken their toll.
Cops quell potential violence. More tears. A bloodied nose escorted out.
Alleged diamond dealer Nequita Giesteira, 39, asks what horses look like.
Hugging during the national anthem and ... They're off and racing!
Down at the track's outside rail, pink-faced fans facing forward rise in a rugby crowd roar.
"Get up Sky Major you good thing, get up!"
Sweaty palms slap scrunched racebooks as the glistening beasts thunder past.
In the end, a female driver won The Great Race for the first time. Kerryn Manning directing Australian horse Arden Rooney wouldn't be run down.
The commentators called it a "seething effort".
Ripping up his ticket, Chris Small called it "bulls***".
A naked male streaker crossed the track after the horses passed for the final time. He was crash-tackled and led away.
Gavin McPherson asks his mates where that betting slip went.
"It was on the table," he says, bewildered. "It came in!"
Few knew there were two races left on the card.
They faced a sober outside world.
Some sang on free buses home. Others tip-toed and tottered in bare feet.
Others optimistically angled east towards city bars where burly bouncers would laugh unsmilingly at their bloodshot eyes.
Let's do it all again next year.
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