A Day at the Races

Yesterday I was invited to the afternoon meeting at Brighton Races.

Brighton as a sporting city punches above its weight with a Premiership football team and a cricket side that produced the likes of Ted Dexter, Jim Parks, John Snow and more recently Mushtaq Ahmed, Murray Goodwin, Matt Prior, Rashid Khan, Ollie Robinson and Chris Jordan.

Although the racecourse is beautifully aspected on the South Downs with spectacular views over them to the sea, the facilities and the horses attracted are well short of Goodwood, Fontwell and Plumpton.

I was invited by a good friend whose busy life has been one of corporate success and who enjoys his midweek racing.

We took lunch in the Silks restaurant and applied ourselves to the business in hand of picking winners which we conspicuously failed to do.

From an outside balcony you had a great view of the track, which starts in the distance, takes a downhill left bend, has a steep incline and levels towards the finishing line.

This made for competitive races but my pick tended to fall away. I had been told course and distance were the key and came good with a winner (Intercessor) in the last race.

We consoled ourselves that the craic was actually the key as we chewed the cud on sporting matters.

My friend is a Fulham supporter and the input of the late Mohammed al Fayed was very much on the agenda.

Not all the obits were flattering of the colourful businessman, which begs the question of whether a fan should be concerned or whether the only arbiter is what he did for the club.

In Al Fayed’s case, he transformed Fulham into a Premiership  club.

We were also blessed by the hottest day of the year at 24 degrees C.  There was a cooling sea breeze too.  The views were indeed spectacular and a good time was had by one and all.

Horse racing is subsidised by the betting companies and I guess the crowd was 1,500 or so. This begs  the question – what future has it?