Miss Gloucester 2013: Cheltenham Race Week

Nothing can quite compete with the atmosphere of race week. It's the only week where walking through town at eight in the morning dressed to the nines is socially acceptable; Arfur Foulkesaycke is a normal name for a horse; and buying thirty Gloucestershire Echo's all at once doesn't mean you just love a good bit of journalism.

Unfortunately I've never been to the races myself but this year I was lucky enough to promote for Gloucestershire Media in the town centre with the best promotional team this side of… well, Gloucestershire! The A-team of promotional work and the only people who could out shout the town crier. We worked our little thermal socks off all week come rain or shine and after five days of promoting the Echo you come to realise that there is no limit to the amount of Echo's people will buy for a free bet; being a bit mental is part of the job description; Guinness crisps taste nothing like Guinness; if you're shouting out all week your voice can start to become a little horse (cue canned laughter); and even though most of the people you asked told you to bet on Silviniaco Conti that doesn't mean he's necessarily going to win. Typical that I pick the horse who falls over almost as much as I do!

Silviniaco Conti

It's one of very few events than can get people sworn off betting having a bit of a flutter and can bring people from all walks of life together on one racecourse whether you're Kate Middleton or Joe next door. But despite the weather warnings for snow and rain all week the sun managed to make an appearance luckily for all the women wearing their posh dresses and men in their freshly ironed suits. If you didn't know any better you'd think it was a massive wedding. But any excuse to dress a million dollars is fine by me, even though I wore my oversized Glos Media coat and another ten layers underneath, not the most flattering of attire I have to admit!

At the end of the day everyone will always tell you the only winners are the bookies and the jockeys … or the bloke who spent twenty-five pence on an accumulator and won over sixty grand! Bet he wishes now that he bumped it up to one pound. But it doesn't matter whether you won or not at the races, it's whether or not you had a good time, so you can tell all those winners that even though they have the cash you're morally richer. Even though they're probably happier having the money! But now that it's all over you have another year to save up you're money to do it all again, until then Happy Racing everyone!