Epsom means business with its week-long Derby festival - and here is how the radical revamp could look

The eyes of the racing world will on Saturday once again turn to the weird but wonderful Epsom. We should be thankful for that. Not long ago the racecourse's future was uncertain. That is just one reason why the Jockey Club is right to be thinking boldly about the Derby meeting.

In a recent special report, Epsom was twice described by informed sources as the Jockey Club's "problem child". To understand how much of a problem it has been, you need go back only as far as 2007, the year Frankie Dettori finally won his first Derby aboard Authorized.

That was also the year when approval was finally given for a new £25 million grandstand to replace the 1927 Rosebery Stand, which by its 80th year had been condemned due to crumbling concrete and rotting steel. The old structure had to come down. Far from certain was what, if anything, would go up in its place.