Instead of kicking yourself take your chance to get up close and personal with a racehorse

If you're as good at missing winners as I am then you'll be kicking yourself good and hard if you haven't taken up the many opportunities to visit some stables during National Racehorse Week.

Unlike most missed chances, this horse has not yet bolted as – in a quite brilliant move that most employers would relish taking up – National Racehorse Week is nine days long and doesn't end until Sunday.

Some, but not all, of this weekend's events have reached capacity, but even then they are swiftly followed by the Malton Open Day on September 7 and the Henry Cecil Open Weekend in Newmarket on September 20 and 21, which labours under the acronym of HCOW that hardly befits an event which in part celebrates one of the most elegant of trainers.

Given that a trek to the plains of Newmarket can sometimes feel like a journey to the Eurasian Steppe, you might want to combine your visit to Suffolk with a Saturday afternoon of racing on the Rowley Mile for Cesarewitch Trial day on September 20.

That aside, there are important reasons for supporting any event that helps to demonstrate the devotion that stable staff have for the horses in their care and enables anyone and everyone across the social divides that sometimes threaten to pull us apart to get up close and personal with the stunningly beautiful thoroughbreds at the centre of our sport.

Georgia Dingle of Great British Racing at Epsom during National Racehorse WeekCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

It would be a bleak world without the horse but, in the long century since they became redundant as means of transport, to power machinery or to provide an advantage in battle, horses have become a luxury, an expensive one that requires extensive grassland to nurture and exercise. 

Thank goodness then for racing, which, as the autumn sales season will demonstrate, places high value on the best of the thoroughbred breed and which still fuels a betting industry that cannot yet rely on virtual representations, sports or casino games to sate all their customers' needs.

There is hardly room for complacency, though, and the social licence for the use of horses in sport and for the gambling which sustains our arm of equine activity is constantly, and rightly, under scrutiny.

Looking deep into a horse's generous eye and feeling the power under your palm of its neck and shoulders alone is to reconnect with a force of nature in the most elemental way. Stop kicking yourself and book your ticket before the stable door is locked.

Read more on National Racehorse Week:

'He nibbled my knee!' - Epsom visitors enjoy a close encounter with the stars of National Racehorse Week 

'The one thing we have over any other sport is that beautiful four-legged creature' - how National Racehorse Week shows racing at its best 

How could you not support celebrating the thoroughbred if you love horseracing? 

In pictures: crowds gather in the Epsom sun to celebrate National Racehorse week 

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