- This topic has 89 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 14 years ago by
.
- Posts
Whilst yesterday was clearly a cock up of mighty proportions, I love the fact that there is a dress code in racing. For me it is one of the things that sets it apart from other sports.
Perhaps if other sports DID follow suit there would be less inane screaming of "GET IN THE HOLE" or "you must be xxxxing blind ref!"
What is wrong with being asked to look smart? It is "the sport of kings" after all! As someone else said you can always pay a fiver and mix with the denim and overall wearers as I used to when spending Derby day on the downs.
There is so little tradition left nowadays so I am glad that Ascot and other courses still have standards.
Ascots standards didn’t stop a guy with a pint of lager making a show of himself on terrestrial television.At least he was wearing a tie.
Steve Jobs of Apple was hardly working class.(wealth estimate $10 billion) Never wore nothing but blue jeans and black turtle neck sweater.
Never means never.More likely Ascot came to him.Snooty but so British.Please Mr.Jobs would you mind taking off your pants before entering the expensive enclosure? Otherwise you must stay with your own class.No Mr.Jobs,this is not India.No Mr Jobs you are not Mr.Gandhi,please Mr .Gandhi ignore Mr.Jobs and put on your pants.
I guess there won’t be any Gigginstown runners at Ascot in the near future. Obviously the biggest owner of National Hunt horses in Ireland, and hugely successful businessman, Michael O’Leary with his jeans and hatred of ties would be so ghastly a sight that he would distract all the members of the premier enclosure from the racing.
Priviliged in this sense would be having access to things out of reach of the Clapham omnibus person you refer to. I include education and good tailoring in that definition.
Come on Corm get in the real world – your socialist, utopian ideal ain’t going to work – cannot work.
There will, in any society, be people who are better off than others that’s how the world works, how nature works – be it an ant colony, a pride of lions or human society.
All pigs are born equal but some are born more equal than others.
I’ve got no problem with a Dress Code at any event and agree it is a matter of respect.
Many people will go to places like Ascot for a special day out and getting dressed up and mixing with people that have made a similar effort is all part of the day.
One tip I would give to any man is to either buy a tailored suit and shirt or at the very least get an off the peg suit adjusted to fit….there there nothing worse than an ill fitting suit.
Blimey! Who’d have thought Ascot could have generated such publicity from a £4.99 packet of orange stickers?
The main issues I have with dress codes are:
1. A suit is work attire as far as I’m concerned. Other than weddings and funerals, I don’t expect to have to wear a suit outside work
2. Ties are so 1990s. The norm for besuited businesspeople is the open-necked shirt these days
3. It’s all very well prescribing certain types of clothing but we’ve all been to race meetings where a good proportion of the attendees are ‘technically’ complying but still look bloody awful.
4. A scrum at the bar is the last place I want to be wearing an expensive suit. Lager and Armani are not happy bedfellows.If Ascot want to separate people according to how they dress then may I suggest that they refrain from selling lager and beer in the premier enclosure. The attendees will then self-segregate in a much more acceptable way.
If Ascot want to separate people according to how they dress then may I suggest that they refrain from selling lager and beer in the premier enclosure. The attendees will then self-segregate in a much more acceptable way.
Now you’re talking – I would actually love it if some courses introduced alcohol free enclosures – indeed I would even consider buying a pair of jeans to access such an enclosure
Now you’re talking – I would actually love it if some courses introduced alcohol free enclosures – indeed I would even consider buying a pair of jeans to access such an enclosure
Isn’t that the point, though, Paul? What premier enclosure racegoers really want is segregation according to
behaviour
rather than segregation according to
clothing
?
This isn’t a class issue but it is one of standards. The mistake Ascot has made is thinking that controlling clothing can ensure certain standards of behaviour. Sadly, ever since nightclubs have imposed dress codes, the worst behaved people in society are the ones most likely to have a day/night out wearing a suit and tie.
As someone who hates wearing ties, for reasons of comfort, I still endorse the right for a racecourse to have a dress code. I choose not to go in the Royal Enclosure at Royal Ascot because I know, that in likely hot weather, I will be uncomfortable in a morning suit and top hat.
The problem as I see it is that racecourses want to have their cake and eat it. Certain courses want to maintain an air of tradition, standards, smartness etc., yet they don’t seem to maintain standards of decorum, drinking, behaviour etc. Why? Because, as a nation of drinkers, there is too much money to be made from the public throwing alchohol down their neck at every opportunity.
Ascot’s methods have backfired spectacularly, but was it really that bad? When you buy ANYTHING these days there are terms and conditions and you would be a fool if you didn’t read the small print. Ascot quite clearly state that you should wear a jacket and tie in the Premier Enclosure. Obviously they decided that they wanted to show a bit of grace to those who had failed to follow the standards, as a way of making sure standards were followed in the future. As someone else said earlier, the orange sticker wasn’t a "badge of shame" it was a way of ensuring that individuals weren’t spoken to every single time they entered the enclosure. Did people really feel SHAME if they had an orange sticker on? The question is how to publicise the regulations better so that only a handful of people are turned away on race day.
I must admit that I was surprised Ascot have a jacket and tie policy for winter racing. I don’t understand this at all bearing in mind that the attire is likely to be covered by a big winter coat, hat and possibly scarf.
Looking at a lot of the dress code policies from different racecourses, the ones that want to maintain a dress code are just far too vague. I actually think they should post pictures of attire that is unnacceptable, rather than use someone’s interpretation of "smart". Ascot have actually done quite a good job in defining the code for Royal Ascot, but for every other meeting the term "ladies should dress for a smart occassion" is just too vague. Look at the Aintree meeting in March – there are plenty of girls dressed for a "smart" occassion…..but I’m not sure a ‘Big, Fat, Gypsy Wedding’ counts!
At every sporting event you go to, including the working man’s sports like football and rugby league, there are tickets available according to price. If you are prepared to pay you get the best view. It’s the way it is. Racecourses should be allowed to do the same and they should be allowed to have a dress code. The problem is that they don’t have the balls to enforce the dress codes properly because they don’t want to turn people away.
Tuffers – I agree, but I would ban alchohol in the Premier Enclosure full-stop. The biggest negative for me at racing are groups of people who seem to want to go for a day out and to get drunk. I even wonder if some of them watch the racing! I went to watch a golf tournament at Wentworth a couple of years ago and was amazed at the amount of beer being drunk by the spectators. Without wishing to sound old and boring it does seem that a lot of people in this country can’t enjoy themselves at a sporting event without drinking plenty of alchohol. In my opinion there is a time and a place for getting drunk….a pub, a nightclub, or at home. But there’s just way too much money to be made from the swillers and racecourses aren’t going to turn that down!
Great post iamthebigman – I loved the "Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" analogy for Aintree – I had been trying to think of an appropriate analogy for that meeting all weekend and was struggling to come up with something appropriate for a public forum – you have hit the nail on the head with that one.
Because, as a nation of drinkers, there is too much money to be made from the public throwing alchohol down their neck at every opportunity.
and that is why, unfortunately, we are unlikely to see alcohol free enclosures on any UK racecourse.
It is a cash cow – it’s how Towcester are able to offer free admission most meetings.
In a previous job I was on the Sports and Social Club committee and I was also the licensee for the club bar.
I was astounded just how much profit could be made from the booze sales – even after paying for staff and other costs, it probably subsidised 90% of the activity the Sports and Social Club and we supported a lot of activity with almost 2,000 on site.
I have little doubt the racecourses have the financial clout to negotiate even better discounts from the breweries than we did.
It would be interesting to see if any course is brave enough to give it a go – I think there would be many racegoers who would be prepared to pay, say a fiver more, to go in a booze free enclosure.
It would be interesting to see if any course is brave enough to give it a go – I think there would be many racegoers who would be prepared to pay, say a fiver more, to go in a booze free enclosure.
I’ve no problem with people having a drink with a meal in a restaurant or brasserie-type place – perfectly fine. I’m afraid I share the view that dressing well doesn’t always go with behaving well especially where alcohol is concerned.
Some of the worst behaviour I have seen at racecourses has been at summer evening meetings among corporate groups in private boxes.
Most people are mostly fine most of the time and I’m hardpushed to justify an alcohol ban. I think the issue is that racecourses and racecourse staff find it easier to deal with individual infractions of a dress code – the individual concerned will be embarrassed and maybe annoyed but will be reasonable about any sanction.
I have rarely seen any racecourse staff, either individually or in groups, attempt to deal with clearly inebriated groups of young men or women. I suspect they’ve been told not to provoke a potential public order problem (bad publicity for the course) but when it does get out of hand (Newmarket, Ascot), the response from the tracks has been tepid in terms of delaing with the problem and equally tepid in recognising that their actions are part of the problem.
I have also never seen racecourse staff refuse to serve drink – maybe they could try putting orange stickers on the drunks
.It would be interesting to see if any course is brave enough to give it a go – I think there would be many racegoers who would be prepared to pay, say a fiver more, to go in a booze free enclosure.
Surely the point is that there is a significant cohort of racegoers who don’t drink and we’re just talking about putting them all in the alcohol free enclosure. No sales of alcohol are actually lost as those people wouldn’t have been drinking even if alcohol was available.
Dare I say, if the alcohol bars in that enclosure were converted to decent coffee bars then drinks related profits would actually increase.
IIRC it’s never the lads in the jeans and the shirts who are throwing punches, it’s never the Northern courses that have issues with fighting racegoers so whatever you think of the racing and the people at Aintree – I know I’d much much rather be at Aintree with the civilised folk wearing what they feel comfortable in than at Ascot with the hooligans in suits it all comes down to who you want to attract as your clientel.
FWIW I’ve been racing at top class Northern tracks such as Haydock, Aintree, York, Doncaster etc. 50+ times in my life and never once seen as much as a single punch thrown. From only a handful of visits to Newmarket and Ascot I’ve been told of a fight in a private box at HQ and seen the Police chasing countless yobs in suits down the street having left the latter, that after meeting a number of lovely TRFers for racing there a couple of years ago.
Martin
IIRC it’s never the lads in the jeans and the shirts who are throwing punches, it’s never the Northern courses that have issues with fighting racegoers so whatever you think of the racing and the people at Aintree – I know I’d much much rather be at Aintree with the civilised folk wearing what they feel comfortable in than at Ascot with the hooligans in suits it all comes down to who you want to attract as your clientel.
FWIW I’ve been racing at top class Northern tracks such as Haydock, Aintree, York, Doncaster etc. 50+ times in my life and never once seen as much as a single punch thrown. From only a handful of visits to Newmarket and Ascot I’ve been told of a fight in a private box at HQ and seen the Police chasing countless yobs in suits down the street having left the latter, that after meeting a number of lovely TRFers for racing there a couple of years ago.
Martin
If you want to spend an afternoon with inappropriately dressed females, I refuse to call them ladies, prostrate and rolling in their own vomit then yes "Ladies" Day at Aintree is the perfect place to go. Having said that "Ladies" Day at Ascot can also be scary at times.
I have seen fights at many courses, south and north, big and small and undoubtedly 99% of them alcohol fuelled – then again I would suggest that is probably more a reflection of society in general rather than racing in particular.
I am genuinely at a loss to understand why people seem unable to have a pleasant time without pouring copious amounts of alcohol down their throats.
I’m not anti alcohol by any means but I just physically did not like the effects of drinking too much – what is the pleasure in going to sleep in a bed that is spinning and waking up with a mouth and throat dryer than the Sahara and not knowing how much of an idiot you have been when drunk.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.