The dress code was the dreaded "smart casual" and the male attire ranged from one guest who looked lke he was off to a wedding to the sort of gear worn at a smart bbq (most of the rest). As I normally wear a shirt and tie to work, I have no time for dressing up when not "on duty". If it doesn't fit, then tough!
The ladies on the other hand like dressing up as a rule, and all looked a picture.
The charabanc arrived. Now we were expecting a coach, but what arrived was an ancient minibus, the sort of thing used by bus companies in rural backwaters. Some of us were hoping it may have a tv so that we could watch the England v USA world cup game on the way home, but we counted ourselves lucky it had seats!
Luxury, sheer luxury....I did not know quite what to expect as I have never had the remotest interest in horse racing, which, almost uniquely amongst sports, would not exist were it not for the betting industry. I used to have an annual flutter on the Grand National at the bookies, but even that stopped a good few years back. The entry ticket (£35 for the posh seats) included £10 of vouchers for the expected over-priced food and drink, and £10 of betting vouchers, one of which was a free £2 bet, the rest essentially money off vouchers. When you add to that the race programme and sundry tote betting cards, we were each carrying around a small forest worth of paper.
As it was Irish Tote Day I expected a lot of inebriated Irishmen and their equally pissed women to be staggering around. Although there were a few falling into that category, the majority of the spectators, at least in the posh area were loud cockernee geezers and their birds, noworramean? The blokes looked and sounded like extras from Hustle (Minder if you're older) and the women were of the classic Essex bird variety. There was one in particular that caught my eye. She was elegantly starved a la Victoria Beckham, not particularly pretty, but wearing a low cut very bright yellow dress - you could see her coming from miles away. Her mate was more attractive but less flamboyant. These were what one might call high maintenance women, paid for by their barrow boy geezer boyfriends who probably all worked in The City making more in a day than some of us do in a year.
The day started to get interesting for me when the tips I was given by Phil started winning. At one point I was even shouting along with all the punters.
I won some dosh on this race...
A loud punter.....After the last race of the day we were entertained in the paddocks by a U2 tribute band. I felt sorry for the singer who spends his spare time impersonating the world's biggest bellend! The cockernee geezers and their birds were louder than ever after four bottles of Bolly, the birds were falling off their high heels and falling out of their dresses, the blokes doing knees-up singalongs to Bonio's greatest hits. all very amusing!
The blokes in our party led by Robert having been primed by me, voiciferously decided that we would just HAVE to leave early to get back to the Fur & Feathers in deepest Hampshire, where a reception was being held for Steve, but, more importantly, a 45 inch tv had been set up so we could watch the England v USA game. By now I was, shall we say, somewhat pished, having been drinking all day. As a real ale fan, the only thing I could drink at Sandown was Guinness. Suffice to say it did strange things to my bowels the following day! At least they had Adnams in the pub, otherwise gawd knows what would have happened if I had had to carry on with the Irish Nectar!
All in all an interesting and enjoyable experience.
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