If you like your baguette filled with unidentifiable pressed offal and crinkle-cut vegetables, washed down with cold beer, clouds of cigarette smoke, hot fish soup and the aroma of cut grass, the weekend race meet in Saigon is where you’ll find it.

Not exactly Flemington racetrack, the bands of children and pipe-smoking old men and the odd straying chicken give the Saigon Racetrack an old-world, carnival air, which is enhanced by the piped gangster jazz that plays throughout the afternoon. But there is the thrilling scent of excited gambler and frisky pony in the air as well.

The crowd is Vietnamese getting serious about their spectator sports, and judging from the solemn-faced men with very well-groomed roosters tucked under one arm, they go on to attend other sporting activities held somewhere near the track after the main event.
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Ladies, this is definitely not Oaks Day – the handful of women here are selling food, and a strict dress code of cut-off T-shirts, toilet slippers and baggy shorts applies for all punters.

The track has one large, no frills grandstand for the spectators, at some distance from the track, which means you have to sprint down from the stands to place a bet or to get a close look at the race. Placing the bet is a work of wild confusion – you use both elbows to plough through the crowd, wave your money at the small gap under the security glass, along with everybody else, and hope for the best. The betting stubs are difficult to read - as a foreigner without a guide, you may have the added excitement of never really knowing if they got your bet right until the race has been run – and also not knowing what time its going to be held.

As there are only four or five horses in each race, you can’t just pick the winner – you have to pick first and second, the trifecta or try to place the whole field. Where it really gets confusing, though, is when you’re working out the odds. Don’t ask me how it’s done. Wait til the end of the race, run back to the betting booth with your elbows in action, and someone will give you some money or raise a disdainful eyebrow at you and give you your ticket back.

The biggest surprise of the day is when they bring the horses out to the pens. Although Vietnamese law states that jockeys must be at least fifteen years old, the tiny inscrutable boys look younger than ten. The whole event starts to take on a weird toy-like quality. The considerably older trainers take the boys all the way to the gates, speaking with an urgent intensity as they lead them onto the field. The other surprise is the horses, which are sized to match the jockeys but have a tough, mini-brumby-like quality to them. They are not exactly even-tempered and one horse bucking and frothing at the mouth indicates the likelihood of doping and race fixing.

The race is announced and people sprint down from the stalls and suddenly the horses are kicking up a huge cloud of red dust as they run around the powdery track. The moment of intense concentration and excitement 10 seconds before the horses reach the finish line is possibly the same on every racetrack in the world.

The races offer a breath of fresh air, literally - an almost pastoral feel, which cannot be found easily in Ho Chi Minh City. There are no beggars and there is nothing apart from sandwiches and beer snacks for sale.

If you go early you can see the horses being led to the track by bicycle or motorbike. It’s a great place to see a very unfettered, festive side to the Vietnamese people and to really feel part of the crowd.
The Saigon racetrack opens Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 1pm.