The horse races at St. Moritz

We don’t have a clue about horses, don’t ride them and don’t know a thing about them, just that they look gorgeous when racing by at full speed. I’ve wanted to come here to photograph them for years, and finally we made it. Bad luck: the weather is lousy, it is cold and snowing heavily and visibility is bad, no or little light, but that won’t spoil our fun.

White Turf, the races at the mondain winter ski resort of St.Moritz. The only place I’ve heard of, where horses race on snow on a frozen lake. These races have been held here for ages, always the first 3 Sundays in February, this year is the 112th issue ! To get there take the bus Nr.1 from your hotel to St.Moritz Bahnhof and walk across the road, or come by car and park in one of the assigned (free) parking lots, just follow the signs. Walk to the race area and pay the entrance fee: CHF 85 for a premium numbered seat on the stands with of course the best view of the finish line. CHF 45 if you like to sit and have a good overview, free choice of where you sit, or CHF 25 for standing but then you can literally go anywhere around the outside of the track. Which seemed a better option for us to photograph.

The first race is at 11:30, so us smart-ass beginners decided to position ourselves at the far end of the track, just so that we could get them rounding the first corner.

The horses arrive and move towards the start, which is quite far away from us, the track being 1200m long.  Suddenly they come from the left, damn, we almost missed them. No worries a friendly volunteer told us, this is the warm-up round, the race will be clockwise as we had expected. Pfew !

Here they come, this is so beautiful, this is so cool ! Oh boy, I don’t like the background, I want snow and trees. So as soon as they have passed, I plough through the fresh snow (we had 70cm last night), to get to the straight part across from the finish line, much better and just in time…

The horses are near the finish line and will soon come my way again. No they don’t, race is  over, damn, do they only do one round ? Now I have to walk back the whole 600m through that heavy snow again.

It’s a half hour wait for the next race. Time to watch the medal ceremony and place a bet. Again, we don’t have a clue, this is science I tell you.

You can bet all sorts of stuff: WIN bet, where you win if your horse comes in first, PLACE bet where you win if your horse comes 1st, 2nd or 3rd and you can even bet on 2 or 3 horses and win if your horse finishes in the first three places. By the time I read all the information it was time to get in position again, no time to bet now. I would have picked the prettiest horse anyway, no clue if it were good or bad, which is probably not the best way to bet.

We asked another one of the many, very friendly, volunteers and now know how it all works.

Actually it is all in the race program, which has all the information on betting and also on the races. It even has little maps of the track, where the start is, and how many rounds they do. We are learning fast.

The track is 1200m, the start is to the right of the finish-line, how far away depends on the length of the race, which varies from 1300 to 1800. The ski-jöring, the race where they don’t just ride or pull buggies but pull people on ski  is the only race which goes over 2700m, twice around so more photo opportunities, can’t wait for that one to start ! The next race is shorter only 1300m, and no buggies are being drawn, just jockeys. But we now know where to position ourselves. Then race Nr.3  which is a new category, kids on ponies ! Cute, and they really tried hard, poor little ponies !

Finally at 13:00 the ski jöring is to start, no time for betting, we’ve been running around trying to get the best photo position.

For this race we decided to go near the start box, get the start and then they will come by twice before they cross the finish line, perfect.

The start takes a while, not all horses are happy, ready and willing to enter the start box. At last they are off !

Snow flies, a cloud of white dotted with colorful jockey dresses as they race by, this is cool.

We are ready as the come around the bend after round one. Three of them are far ahead, the rest is more spaced out, better for us to focus, but I like all of them together better, more colorful and exiting. 

One more race, new angle, this is fun. We even had time to get a drink and a Bratwurst between the races. So with a full belly and totally motivated we give it another try.

This would be so brilliant in bright sunlight… I think we’ll have to come back another time and try again !

For our best photos from the 1st race weekend in 2019 : Go to gallery