What if racing's obsession with big-money racedays is a mistake?

You may have noticed that racing, for a sport that suffers more funding crises than an aspiring actor, seems to have plenty of money sloshing about these days – at least at the top end, anyway.

Last weekend we waved goodbye to the British Flat season (barring, that is, the rest of the season) with an extravaganza of flag-waving, Olympic medalists and top-class racehorses, which with more than £4 million in prize-money was the most expensive race meeting ever staged in Britain.

Even with the pound competing with the Argentine peso and Ruritanian farthing for the title of world's most ridiculous currency, that's an awful lot of money. And just in case anyone didn't realise how fabulously well-off the day was, organisers were flashing the cash on course too, giving away a car and a year's rent to a student who, by the by, also hadn't had to pay for their ticket. I know university education was in effect free in my day, but I did have to pay to go racing, so things probably worked out about the same.