- Getting ready
The first stage every student goes through begins with dressing or suiting up early in the day. This is one of the highlights and probably the only stage you will remember clearly.
As a guy, getting ready is always a unique feeling as you tie up the buttons on your waistcoat, knowing there is a high chance that you could lose pieces of your €200 suit throughout the day when the alcohol inevitably takes control.
It’s a similar situation for women. You put that makeup on even though you know that your eye shadow will start cascading down your face in tears later that night when you catch your friend Sarah shifting that fella you were chatting up all day (That bitch).
- Bus to Leopardstown
Usually there is one sound person who organises the bus to Leopardstown. This poor unfortunate will painfully learn the harsh reality that the money they spent booking the transport won’t be paid back to them, as all your pissed friends begin clamouring on to the bus. “Ah I’ll pay you on the way back”, “I have no money on me now” and “I’ll buy you a drink in there” are all common excuses that can be heard throughout the journey to Leopardstown. That is what you get for being so organised and sound!
- Getting to the event
As soon as the bus parks, you can be sure to see all the men jump out and perform an odd run/hop to the nearest group of trees. The sound of piss hitting fallen leaves can be heard throughout the car park, followed by a groan of relief. This unique phenomenon is then ruined as a few Gardaí on bikes catch some of the students coming out of cover, similar to deers being caught by lions in a David Attenborough documentary.
- Getting into the event
As you stroll half cut into the race day, making sure you aren’t too drunk to get in, you realise you know nothing about the races going on throughout the day and how to even place a bet in the first place. You stand around chatting to your friends for a while before you drunkenly wander off and lose them all.
- Placing bets
You decide to be brave and approach the betting area. You have a look at the names of the horses, pretending you know who is the favourite and who can be a surprise winner, when really you are deciding on which has the funniest name. You place a fiver on it and watch as it comes last.
- Become bored
The novelty of getting dressed up and not acting like a broke student begins to wear off as the day progresses. You start to become very bored and depressed as you slowly wander around looking for your friends. You may come across something exciting like a brawl between security and a group of drunken idiots, but that only lasts for a few minutes or so before you are back to square one, holding your plastic cup half filled with Heineken that you paid nearly €7 for.
- Find one of your friends
You stumble across one of your friends who you find pissed out of their mind and chatting to a wall. You try to find a place to get something to eat, and eventually settle on burgers that cost upward of €8. You are drunk so you are happy to pay the extortionate price and then begin to do laps of the racecourse to find your other friends, with no luck.
- Wait to go home
You give up trying to find anyone so you end up heading back to the bus to wait for the races to finish. You are exhausted at this point aswell as drunk. You are now desperate to go home and try to fight the tiredness that’s creeping in. Eventually, all your friends return and you head back to your house to get ready for the night ahead.
- Pre- Drinks
This stage can go one of two ways. You must resist going for a nap, because that will essentially be the night over, as you pass out from drunken exhaustion, mentally telling yourself that you will be up and fresh in 20 minutes, which just doesn’t happen.
If you somehow stop yourself from sleeping, it is now time to get drinking. You begin to funnel alcohol of any sort into you to get back to buzz you had at the start of the day. You end up getting hammered again but look significantly less dapper as before. This is the powering through stage before the final part of the night…
- Going out
You made it to the final stage!!! You are a mixture of extremely drunk and tired at this final stage, but you eventually make it into a night club after waiting 40 minutes in the queue. This is basically a standard night out except everyone is much drunker and dressed up as if they were in the Great Gatsby. You continue to drink, probably end up getting a shift or two, eventually fall out of the nightclub and vomit on the street, before spending your last tenner on a kebab meal in Babylon. This signifies the end of the race day, and a lead in to the inevitable chat in the morning with your roommates about your adventures the day before.
John McAuliffe