Aintree and the Melbourne cup

The Melbourne cup is Australia's richest and most widely-followed horse race.  Just after the running of the cup in 2012 I noted a comment from a  British journalist that scorned the patrons at the cup.  We all know that racegoers generally get rather cheerful on that day of days but I thought the scorn was overdone and unjustified.  So I put up a piece on this blog which pointed out that racedays in Britain can be pretty disgusting.  I illustrated my point with a few pictures from Aintree, home of Britain's premier jump race, the Grand National.

But my blog has nowhere near a mass audience so I imagine that my comments went totally unheeded in Britain.

I have always found however that the world eventually tends to catch up with what I think so I was pleased that this year a Murdoch tentacle has gone to town on the doings at Aintree.  You can see the pictures here in all their glory.

The problem with Aintree is that it is within easy access from Liverpool, a largely working class and underclass city with a high incidence of welfare dependency.  And the fat ladies from the council houses of Liverpool seize the opportunity to visit a national occasion and disport themselves.

There is also a collection of photos in Britain's  Daily Mail but it takes the Murdoch collection to give you the full horror of it all.  If you read only the DM you might think the occasion was a fairly respectable one.

The DM article is in fact a bit of a coverup this year.  They have had more graphic pix in previous years.  And the reason probably is that a large chunk of the tickets for Ladies' Day went unsold this year.  Apparently Brits generally have become disgusted by the occasion and have taken to staying away.  So the fat ladies will have only one-another to show off to.  There will be very few ladies at Ladies' Day from now on.



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