Smuggling booze into Cheltenham? It makes for painful headlines but the Jockey Club must bear a lot of the blame

There's probably never been a Cheltenham Festival which has made me mutter "Oh my God!" as many times as the one we saw last week – and the shocks didn't end with the racing.

I was reeling again this week when footage emerged of a resourceful young racegoer sharing a sneaky plan to smuggle her own alcohol into the races. The booze in question came in the form of flavoured vodka, contained in five plastic pouches. An unseen friend sellotaped these to her calves and their contraband was then hidden under fashionably baggy trousers.

Before someone at the Jockey Club phones to tell me off for inciting subterfuge among readers of the Racing Post, I should say that this particular life hack seems unlikely to catch on. Without wishing to appear lazy, I thought it looked like a lot of effort and it certainly involved a lot of tape being attached to skin, which was sure to have painful consequences some hours later.