Difficulties remain but big crowds and new courses give cause for optimism

If only I had spent lockdown planning an outdoor catering business I would be in the money now.

This season I have witnessed long queues to buy food from catering units at point-to-points, and at one fixture the beer tent ran dry, restocked, and ran dry again. At a packed meeting in Dorset last weekend they stood five deep at the bar throughout the afternoon, although I missed the first race having been caught in a traffic jam that backed up nearly a mile from the course.

Huge crowds have attended popular fixtures at Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire and Cocklebarrow in Gloucestershire, and while many go for the social rather than the racing it all adds to the atmosphere.