A day at one of racing’s biggest events MyZA

Photo: Getty Images.

At Royal Ascot, in the plusher lavatories in the higher echelons of the imposing grandstand, there are plastic trees, free mouthwash, hand and nail cream, aftershave, moisturiser, deodorant, a shoe brush.

There are even urinals. And racecards.

For five days in June, this is a world like no other, where the planet’s best thoroughbreds compete amid a carnival of colour, fashion, gambling and partying.

Thirty races over six days with £5m in prize money, and a total of 280,000 spectators who get through 170,000 pints of beer and 50,000 bottles of champagne.

“The racing is the best racing in the world, but it has this sense of occasion, of being different to all other meetings, that sets it apart,” says award-winning Racing Post journalist Alastair Down.

It is one surreal stop on the British summer social sporting calendar, where all human life from the cheeky council estate chancers to the top-hatted aristocracy can be observed, in their greatest and basest forms.

Racegoer Debbie Cragg is here, with a mixture of mothers and daughters in a seven-strong party, easing into the day with a chilled glass of rosé and a casual look at the form.

“Why do we come? It’s a mixture of everything – from choosing your outfit, organising it all, the fantastic atmosphere, the horses,” says the 50-year-old from Cobham in Surrey.

On a normal day, she is a fundraiser for a children’s hospice called the Shooting Star Chase, helping kids for whom this glamour and glitz is far removed from their serious illnesses.

“This is a fun day out, a chance to relax, for us all to meet up, and we don’t care if we win or we lose,” she says. – BBC Sport