Some venues appear on first inspection to be perfect for our sport, and a venue that hosts the greatest horse race in the world will come with great expectations .Aintree racecourse is such place ,the arena used for jumping is new and shiny and comes from the financial investment that betting on horses on the flat can bring.
But for the cafe the lack off customers even at an Elite show with 400 entries doesn’t even come close to the thousands that attend the Grand national so like a seeside resort in the winter nearly all the cafes and restaurants on the vast site are closed and left to look like a scene from a zombie movie awaiting the hungry hero to enter and be eaten by the hiding zombie in the closet.
The catering for normal Aintree jumping events held here consists of a mobile burger van that may or may not be open, this show being an Elite show the organisers pushed the boat out a long way and managed to have a standard run of the mill burger van beside a really quaint Citroen H van from the 1960’s converted to a very fashionable Coffee bar with paninis and salads, next to this was a VW camper customized and cut up that offered a fully stocked bar.
We where being spoilt, all three had a good view of the arena and tables and chairs lined up on the perimeter fence, a fence that was just at the right height to block most of the view…never mind at least there was a decent choice of food ..but wait there is dark cloud on the horizon this being a slick commercial setup, a world class venue hosting a big prestige horse show which farms out the food obligations to a commercial operation that must pay the organisers for the privilege of feeding us hungry horse watchers then the prices reflect this, two small coffees and two average bacon baps = £12….ouch.
The Latte’s in the French coffee shop served with a lovely soft scouse accent where made with top coffee and not a polystyrene cup in sight,the paninis very fresh and tasty.. Although the oven was broken and we had to ask the burger van next door to heat it up this chipped a bit of the urban cool feel off the Citroen cafe .
And indoors on a cold Thursday the alcohol was just too early in the day ….for most of us…well some of us anyway.
The ambiance is very hard to magic up in this type of setup ,if we where next to an arena in the summer at Bolesworth with people sat on the grass watching the jumping and the world go past it works great ,but it’s lacks any sole in a big white hall like Aintree and always has the feel of a home furnishing exhibition at the NEC arena.
Most shows at this arena here usually have on burger van and generally it stands lonely in the opposite side of the arena like a awkward teenager looking for a dance at their first school disco sometimes the van would just about coach one desperate person in need of a cup of tea, the Elite show managed to have some of the hanger on horse tat shops and stores grouped around the burger vans this did remove a little of the ‘little house on the prairie’ feel usually present in this arena but they all still felt a bit lost in this vast expanse of a hall.
The day went quick and the blonde managed a good 15th place out of what felt like a 1000 entries, so the run up to the Liverpool ring road was again not such a bad day.
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