'The Plumpton crowd are certainly with the Skeltons - it's enlivened the meeting over the past two days'

Families, funfair rides and frivolity pervaded Plumpton's Easter meeting but there was also a sense of inevitability that the trainers' battle raging this week could end only one way.

The freedom of a bank holiday and the valuable prize-money on offer across the track's two-day meeting play their part in the long car-park queues before racing, but the blow-by-blow nature of this season's championship race added an extra touch of class to the course's traditionally popular fixture. 

"It's enlivened the meeting over the past two days," said commentator Simon Holt. "Harry Skelton won a relatively modest race on Sunday but he was punching the air and you can see how much it matters to them, and it's absolutely lifted proceedings here.