I have once been to a horse race right around the corner where I lived (or a couple of races in fact on that day). Since I was still in school i had no money whatsoever and got there with around 10$. It was hilarious. My friends where kind of in the same situation. One of them bought some paper they were selling there including informations to the races and horses, previous results and favorites. So we studied that for half an hour and began to make bets never worth more than 2$

and were excited to go out and see the race. We couldn´t hide excitment and people were reeeeeeeeeeaaaallly mad at us because we didn´t take it serious enough in the eyes of a passionate gambler. In the end we all left our money there. Though i will never forget on of my friend lost a quite good looking bet just on the last corner because the horse tripped and completly got out of rhytm (didn´t fall so no harm). Otherwise he would have made a good win because it was some kind of combo bet an all the other results came just like he needed them. We laughed at him all the way back.
So if you need an expert on horse racing I´m the man