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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Fun with fashion and flip-flops
Two Grade 1s, two Grade 2s and a cracking contest over the National fences but for anyone at Aintree, today was not just about the racing.
It was Ladies' day, a much-imitated but never surpassed phenomenon that attracts women of all ages from all over the north west.
Race times and finishing distances are all very well but the figures that matter to most racegoers appear to be length of dress and height of heel (with the latter frequently threatening to overtake the former).
It's the sort of the meeting where the Racing Post is the official supplier of flip-flops, handed out at the end of the afternoon to those who just cannot face walking another step in shoes designed more for fashion than comfort.
The sort of meeting where you can bump into Blue Peter's Helen Skelton in the parade ring - though she was not instantly recognisable as she was not exactly dressed for children's television. Had she worn today's outfit on her recent expedition to the south pole she'd have got hypothermia in three seconds flat.
The sort of meeting where you see an elegantly-dressed racegoer on the parade ring steps cupping a glass of rose in one hand, the other holding a shoe box in which was a carefully-sealed carafe containing the rest of her bottle.
That was before mid-afternoon downpours forced a dash for cover. Though the rain may just have been a figment of everybody's imagination - one trainer told us his runner in tomorrow's big race would be suited by the drying ground, just as we were all getting nicely soaked.
Biggest fashion excitement in the press room was the duck egg blue suit sported by bookmakers PR man David Williams - he could not even claim it was company colours as he works for rose-red Ladbrokes, though his suit did match almost exactly the jumper warn by championship-chasing trainer Nicky Henderson.
Budding commentator Steven Powell had a fashion disaster when his trousers split.
All the Matalan stall could offer him was a skirt, so to cover his embarrassment he had to borrow an overcoat from Malcolm Tomlinson, for whom he was spotting in the Radio 5 Live commentary box out in the country.
And I'm a fine one to talk, having decided to go (very) blonde one last time to mark the final Grand National on the BBC. (In which spirit Stewart Machin appeared to pay his own personal tribute to the corporation this afternoon in calling Finian's Rainbow pulling clear of Wishfull Thinking 'going two to his one' which is very much a catchphrase of Jim McGrathwho will be commentating on the National for the 'beeb' for the last time tomorrow)
My hair - which made me look like a Belisha beacon in my black suit - was making its debut as I wasn't here yesterday. (And it didn't stop one racegoer outside the weighing-room asking to have a photo taken with me - I fear she may have taken a drink).
One of the security team on the gate wondered where I'd been on Thursday - and one of his colleagues wanted to borrow my Postas apparently he'd searched Coleen Rooney's bag and he was certain his picture would be in the paper (it wasn't - they went with a shot of Mrs R gazing into the eyes of a pensive Mr R instead).
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