There's this fantastic concept called Mystery Shopping. In short, you get paid to review places by visiting locations and testing customer service, stock, and employee general knowledge. Normally they tend to be a little dry (go to this shop and ask about X, we'll reimburse you for whatever) but every now and then you're given a gem of an assignment: 'Go to Goodwood Racecourse with a plus one and using these extremely fancy badges, review the experience from the perspective of a horse owner and club member. Please visit all the fancy-pants places while you are there'... You can't really say no to that, can you?

The benefit of being asked to go to Goodwood was that we could also pop in to see an old family friend who moved to Worthing on the southern coast.

It was a great excuse for a nice day out at the seaside and some nice meals out before we were headed to the racecourse. You can just about make out Brighton on the far left hand side of the above photo. 

The next morning we were off bright and early on our way to Goodwood. We drove through Arundel on the way which gave us a fantastic view of the castle. Apparently I've been here before when I was younger but have no memory of it whatsoever. If we had had more time I would have loved to stopped and explored!


Finally arriving at Goodwood itself, we got parked up, donned our fascinators, and entered the grounds.


I should stress that although I was dressed the part, I certainly didn't feel like I belonged in the slightest. In the members area that we had been asked to review, everyone walked with an air of money and poshness that was bewildering.

The monied people obviously had the best seats in the house though. We could see all the way back to the coast.


They also got the best view of the entertainment!

As much as we were there to give an objective version of what the experience of Goodwood was like, I ended up doing an awful lot of people watching. By the end of the day I had invented a game called Old Money, New Money for categorising people...


When the races were due to begin, we went to... the paddock? The arena? I don't know what it's called but all the horses were paraded around for us!


And then they were off!


We were then forced to go to two bars and eat at the seafood restaurant. Such a chore!


The last part of our brief had us place the minimum bet on a horse, which involved me learning the difference between betting on a horse to win and betting 'each way'. Gambling is a world I'm not familiar with at all but I'm proud to say we won. Thank you, Big Orange!