Brighton take pride in gay day at races

For years Brighton racecourse has been synonymous with Pinkie, Graham Greene's racketeering sociopath from his novel Brighton Rock. This summer the course will turn from Pinkie to the pink pound when it stages racing's first meeting aimed directly at the gay community.

The track has teamed up with Pride, organisers of the city's annual gay festival, to promote the raceday on 21 July. Half the entrance fee will go towards the gay pride festival in August, which last year attracted more than 60,000 people to the Sussex coast.

'We're delighted to be holding this event,' said Phil Bell, manager of Brighton racecourse. 'We try to broaden our appeal to as many members of the local community as possible and, with 25 per cent of Brighton gay, it makes perfect sense for us to team up with Pride.'

Pride has already booked the largest banqueting suite at the course for a fundraising champagne lunch and cabaret by David Raven, a drag queen also known as Maisie Trollette. 'I'm sure there will be a big turnout,' said Raven. 'I'm really looking forward to the day and hopefully we might be able to persuade one of the jockeys to come up and give us a few tips before racing.

'Perhaps we might ask Frankie Dettori as he's something of a gay icon. If you didn't know he was married you might think he was homosexual. He's so well manicured.'

The raceday will represent progress for horseracing, a sport which has no openly gay participants among its leading jockeys or trainers, and one that is often perceived as a bastion of conservative traditions. 'This sounds like an innovative idea to get people who might not otherwise visit a racecourse, to enjoy the excitement of a day's racing,' said a spokesman for the British Horseracing Board.

The meeting will also signal a triumph for the gay and lesbian community, a minority that is often ignored by mainstream sports.

'Many homosexuals are wary of going to major sporting occasions, especially football matches, for fear of becoming the target of abuse,' said David Harvey, chairman of Pride. 'When Pride suggested teaming up with Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club in a campaign against homophobia at football grounds, Albion told us they weren't interested. They said their fans were already being abused at away grounds because of the issue and felt that such a campaign would only make that situation worse.' Supporters often sing 'Does your boyfriend know you're here' and much worse at Brighton fans.

The July meeting - which will be preceded on 5 July by a dog show for gay owners in the racecourse paddock - represents a coup for the owners of Brighton racecourse, Northern Racing. Since they bought the then dilapidated track in 1998, they have invested more than £4 million and taken raceday crowds from 700 to more than 2,000. Northern Racing's chairman, Sir Stan Clarke, summed up the commercial and progressive ethos of the group, when he said: 'You simply cannot afford to ignore the power of the pink pound.'

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