There is one absolute certainty about a bumper day's racing on Saturday - and that is that seven tracks in the UK will battle to have the second biggest attendance of the day.
The biggest, without any doubt will be in a glorious corner of Lakeland, with a racecourse little more than a mile round and a steeplechase course run-in only rivalled in length by the Grand National at Aintree.
The village is renowned as the Sticky Toffee Pudding Capital of Cumbria, and like no other racecourse in the land has a message on its website ‘picnics are welcomed and indeed encouraged’.
They do it brilliantly, and they do it differently.
Welcome to Cartmel, a magnet for tens of thousands on Whit weekend since the 19th Century where they take customer care to new levels - where else would you find a Priory that dates back to the 12th Century and two nearby pubs for those who adhere to the ‘blessed are they that thirst after righteousness’ message from the Good Book.
It was also the track that made the headlines in 1974 when a horse called Gay Future won, but that’s another story.
Two things have spectacularly gone up at Cartmel. For generations (and it was so in the time of my only visit I regret to say too many years ago) the course, on the Holker Estate where Lord Cavendish and his family live, there was one two-day meeting a year - at Whitsun.
Saturday is the first of nine days' racing at the track in 2022.
And the other is the prize money. A small, welcoming track somehow puts on Saturday’s card, one race worth over £34,000 and two others each worth £20,000, while they have a Saturday meeting in July with a £38,000 feature, supported by a £25,000 race for female jockeys.
The party atmosphere is like no other. The winning straight bisects the track and has a funfair one side and the paddock enclosures on the other.
‘The Cartmel way’ obviously has worked these past years - Grand National-winning trainer Emmet Mullins is amongst those with entries on Saturday, and every winning owner receives a Cartmel Sticky Toffee pudding from the village shop to take home.
I wonder if they do mail order!
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