Tribute to the Ebor Festival by Our Official Poet

York Racecourse is delighted that Ian McMillan has agreed to be the Official Poet of the Racecourse. The Barnsley based bard penned a special tribute to the Ebor Festival of 2009, where there is a verse for each day of the first four day festival:

Listen to the thrilling and the thundering sound:
Excitable runners pounding Yorkshire ground.
But it’s not the horses; they’ve not started yet.
It’s the people dashing forward to place a bet!
Today’s the richest race, best race, world top ten race.
The racing world’s attention is fixed on this place;
You can hear the excitement in the punters’ talk
Here at the Ebor in the heart of York
So let me announce with a tipster’s grin:
Runners and Riders ... let the races begin!

This was the day when the works shut early;
The flat-capped, headscarved, skinny and burly
Going to the races for a Yorkshire occasion
Thronging the streets, pouring out of the station
Starting off the day with a ten-bob note
Ending with a Summer Cruise, a winter coat
Paid for by your horses that came home first
And racing is a hunger, racing is a thirst
And the excitement builds till you think your specs’ll shatter
And today is living proof that racing matters!

On Thursday at the Ebor you’ll find the debaters
Discussing the merits of lacy fascinators
And wide brimmed fedoras versus fruity creations
And stiletto heels higher than the rate of inflation
As the women pour in on Ladies’ Day
Wearing hats can be seen from so far away
They’re a hazard to satellites and passing jets
But these lasses don’t care ‘cos they’re placing bets
That might keep ‘em in hats for a good five years
Or at least buy a sarnie and a couple of beers!

A race is like a poem in the way that it builds
And a jockey is a poet with a dramatist’s skills
Knowing just when to make the audience gasp
When they think that the race is beyond his grasp;
Then the horse and the rider and the crowd combine
To create a moment that’s so sublime
You chuck your hat aloft and choke back tears
And this is a time you’ll recall for years.
(It helped that you won five hundred quid
Which is more, to be frank, than Shakespeare ever did!)

© Ian McMillan

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