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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Ladies and lunatics on Town Moor
Forget the overnight stay (for two) in an 'executive suite' at a local hotel, with 'pink fizz on arrival' or the use of a Fiat 500 for a year.
Forget the 'bespoke fascinator' or the £100s of vouchers at sundry restaurants, bars and fashion outlets.
No, I reckon it was the lure of a 'free bingo bet with Ladbrokes' that tempted all South Yorkshire's budding Naomi Campbells to Doncaster to put themselves through the cattle market of a best-dressed lady competition.
Paraded for all and sundry to gawp at. Forced to endure ordeal by microphone at the hands of Derek Thompson, without whom no such competition is allowed to take place.
And there is physical discomfort to go with the mental torture. The card revealed that no fewer than 100 racegoers were issued with plasters due to ill-fitting shoes at last year's St Leger meeting (and I bet fewer than one of those was a man).
Yes, it's Ladies' day once more, surely the last one anywhere in Britain in 2012 - the cool temperatures this morning were rather more conducive to pulling on a woolly cardigan than a slinky sleeveless number.
Or a cheongsam, which we all now know is an elegant dress from far east thanks to The Gold Cheongsam, who won the £300,000 sales race this afternoon as owner Arashan Ali's partner modelled one such.
Fascinating that the trainer of one of this afternoon's a rival should say he will now take his two-year-old to Redcar for the 'stiff uphill 6f' - things have clearly changed since my last visit to a track which is so flat you could play snooker on the home straight.
Morning was taken up with a Horserace Writers' & Photographers' Association meeting, too secret to discuss here (hardly thrill a minute stuff either) bar the coining of a bizarre new phrase.
Discussing wireless internet, one committee member wished to get across the point that they were not speaking from a position of expertise and said: "I am a technical lunatic" - which conjured up all sorts of, not entirely inappropriate, images.
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