A TEETOTALER SITS ALONE, THE HARDENED DRINKER SITS WITH FRIENDS.

​I do not drink alcohol. This is not to stand judgement on those who do; it is simply an admission of inadequacy on my part. It is not that I dislike alcohol, it is more that alcohol does not like me. Drink, be it from the grape or the grain, does not jolly me up. Sadly, the reverse is true; it dries out the brain and leaves me in a state of unwellness that can pervade for days. These days I just do not have enough functioning brain cells left at my disposal to put those that continue the unequal struggle to get me through the day at risk through alcohol poisoning. It is one of my greatest regrets in life that my chemical composition disallows me from living life as a likeable drunk. Pity the sober man for he knows not the merriment of true camaraderie.
I also have lacking in my character a desire for adventure, though my character also demands I do not follow my fellow man with sheep-like devotion, so the very idea of taking narcotics, legal highs or any substance associated with the word coke or coca, and that includes Coca-Cola, scares the living-crap out of me. I may be lacking is so many respects of human endeavour but my saving grace is that I am not so inherently stupid that I take drugs in a vain attempt to either make sense of the world or to fun-up my life.
So why anyone would go to a racecourse and spend the day drinking in a bar and sneaking off to the toilets to snort or inject illegal substances into their bodies when they might get a natural high by watching and betting on horse racing is beyond my comprehension. It hardly seemed credible when I read that Sodom and Gomorrah had visited Sussex one warm Saturday afternoon, with fifty of its finest hooligans illustrating with fist and volume what life might become for all of us if society does not get a grip on the problem of too-much drink too easily available and the descent into hell that is drugs on our streets.
Were these idiots who gain pleasure through drug-induced violence not given the advice at school ‘never do anything in life you would be too ashamed to tell your mother about’? Did they go home to their mothers, lovers or wives with a black eye and a ripped jacket and say ‘it wasn’t me, the big bully started it. I got caught up trying to get away to find a policeman’? Probably not.
Apparently, Goodwood’s response to the violence was lamentable, though you have to give them some leeway as the trouble came out of the blue and could not have been predicted. Crime and horse racing are not new acquaintances, on a much smaller scale similar isolated incidents have occurred at other racecourses. Once upon a time, back in the days of ‘Brighton Rock’, razor gangs were known to frequent racecourses and con-artists, cardsharps and pickpockets regularly tormented racegoers. I suspect race-meetings have never enjoyed, even now, a reputation to put them alongside church socials and poetry recitals. When drink and stupidity collide trouble of one sort or another will occur more times than not. Add drugs to the cocktail and eventually blood is sure to be spilled.
I suspect the violence at Goodwood and Ascot will prove to be a bump in the road; a wake-up call to racecourse management to beef-up security and to take the possibility of drug use on its premises seriously. Change will occur because of these unsavoury incidents.
 Racecourses should be family friendly, race-meetings promoted as family fun days, with day-care provision for children so that their parents can have a carefree couple of hours to themselves. And there should be entertainment on offer other than just the racing. Indeed, if racecourse management were to liaise with experts in advertising and promotion the scope for getting non-racing people to the racecourse on race-days is nearly endless. Markets, lectures, small fairs, music, exhibitions, riding lessons, jousting, demonstrations of horse riding skills, parades of rehabilitated racehorses, cookery demonstrations, all the fun of the fair. I suggest that race-meetings could be more than just horse-racing. It might try being a day out for all the family, not specifically the drinkers and gamblers of the family.
If I had my way most week-day race-meetings would have free entry and free race-cards, with ‘meeters and greeters’ at turnstiles to direct and guide anyone new to a race-meeting, to demystify the jargon, to enhance the racecourse experience from first foot-fall.
What happened at Goodwood and Ascot, to my way of sober thinking, was both self-generated and a reflection on modern society. I read a headline from the back page of the Daily Mail that clearly suggested that racing has an historic problem with drug use. It does not. The problem is widespread in society; I dare say there are employees of the Daily Mail that regularly use drugs, its readers, also. All racing is guilty of is failing to be one step ahead of the problem, as is often the case, sadly.