Race days out where class is a non-runner

IALWAYS thought Ascot was a cut above – a classy race meet where you could still expect a glass of Pimm’s, a goggle at the Royals and a bit of decorum. Fat chance.

On Ladies Day this week, as racegoers necked their champagne and pondered the merits of endless Time versus Simple Verse (neither horse won, as it happens), a shirtless man rampaged through the crowd, picked a fight with a punter and yelled ‘let’s finish it off’ with all the gusto of a pub landlord at closing time.

Nearby, three women became embroiled in an inexplicable argument that seemed to involve taking off their high heels and pulling each other’s fascinators. Ladies, it seems, is a word to be used loosely these days, never mind the gentlemen.

The brawl at Ascot is not an isolated incident. At Kelso racecourse recently, one couple were caught in flagrante

delicto behind a beer tent, although by the looks of the tawdry video circulating on social media there was nothing delicto about it.

At Aintree this year, bottoms were flashed, women passed out on the concrete still clutching half-drunk bottles of wine, while one woman was so drunk she had to be taken home in a wheelchair.

It’s not even the first time it’s happened at Ascot. In 2011, a mass fight broke out on Ladies Day, with men in top hats brandishing £98 bottles of Laurent Perrier as weapons. The unseemly brawl had to be pulled apart by members of a military band.

I recall attending Ayr racecourse a few years back and being appalled at the endless, mindless drinking, as hordes of twentysomethings, bussed in from all across the Central Belt, arrived at midday – already a bottle of Asti Spumante to the wind – then spent half their time queuing for pints, bottles of fizz and plastic cups of hooch, and the other half queueing for the loos.

By 5pm a fight had broken out, at least three women had deposited their liquid lunches behind a set of bushes and the ground was a dispiriting mosaic of discarded cups and broken high heels. Those poor cleaners.

Just what has happened to the races? Where once they promised glamour, high-class fun and a little bit of luck, now they have been hijacked by the drinking classes.

It’s as though the patrons of the dingiest, grubbiest nightclubs across the country have simply crammed hats on their heads, hitched down their skirts and started the drinking 12 hours earlier than usual.

It’s a shame, really, because the races can, and should be good fun. I’ve had some wonderful days out at a race course and if you know when to go (hint: not on Ladies Day) it can still be a relatively classy affair. yet this lot seem intent on ruining it for the rest of us.

If I wanted to witness drunken men and women in cheap suits and dresses screaming obscenities at each other, I could nip into any number of Glasgow city centre venues on a Saturday night.

Must they really bring their vulgar scenes to the racecourse too?