Hard to find a winner, but fashion sets the pulses racing in Cape Town

Carnival days at racetracks share common characteristics the world over – inebriated females are carrying heels like handbags by the end of the day and most males seem more interested in high jinks than horseflesh.

J & B Met day at Cape Town’s Kenilworth Racecourse is no different, and while a total turnover of more than R50million (HK$43.5million, less than half the handle for an average race at Sha Tin or Happy Valley) might be a drop in the ocean by local standards, there’s still plenty South African racing can teach us about injecting colour into an event.

“The Met” is the social occasion of the year in Cape Town, but what sets it apart from most other carnival race days is the twist it puts on “fashions on the field”. A different theme for  each year adds to the frivolity, this year’s concept “made to fly” ensuring an assortment of angel wings, pilot outfits and helicopter headdresses.

The Sha Tin punter’s standard uniform of ill-fitting trousers, thrift store shirt and a weathered Silent Witness trucker cap, accessorised with tattered form guide, certainly could do with an upgrade. But it’s unlikely the regulars in the main grandstand would be that keen on donning wings. Rather than “made to fly”, maybe the theme could be “made to hurl vitriolic abuse at the  riders of beaten favourites”, then they’d get involved, and could come armed with loud hailers and rotten fruit to add a physical dimension to the heckling.