No tyre kickers or timewasters, but free ice cream for the rest of us

It has just stopped raining and it's quite sunny, cloudy but bright, cold but warm. It's a lovely day but it isn't. In short, it's high summer in Newmarket and at the July Sale the advice is to dress for the weather.

It's not that hard, despite the eternally shifting seasons. At the Tattersalls shop, Tattersalls-branded leisurewear is very much de rigueur, from t-shirts to those brightly-coloured puffy jackets that make you look like a slightly camp version of the Michelin Man; but buying sales apparel really isn't the point – it's all about getting the stuff for free.

Everybody who's anybody, and quite a few who aren't, is wearing clobber they've been given, just for being a player in the bloodstock business. If you're an honest foot soldier, you’ll have a baseball cap, perhaps advertising a Coolmore sire – degree of kudos dependent on stud fee – or a bloodstock agency, but further up the scale the sartorial possibilities are endless.