THANKS to the track bookmakers and caterers digging deep, admission to today's meeting at Musselburgh is free.
While getting in for nothing is all well and good, the trick, as ever, for punters, will be to ensure going out with nothing isn't part of the bargain as well.
At first glance, that shouldn't happen because there are several likely looking conten
ders to take on the layers with, so fingers crossed the results work out on grass the way they've already done on paper.
This, as we all know, always happens.
The opening seller looks tailor-made for Highland Warrior who has been running in better races, and running pretty well, than this of late and having scored over course and distance in his days with Jim Goldie, the nine-year-old clearly feels at home in East Lothian.
Fresh from a successful day at Ayr yesterday, the Goldie hot streak can continue with Gordonsville who turned in a slightly tame performance last time out but had previously not enjoyed the best of runs when finishing runner-up in Hamilton's Silver Bell.
Even top-weight won't stop him if he repeats that display and while Handsome Cross may not be the same horse he was when landing the Scottish Sprint Cup a couple of years back, the former David Nicholls inmate, who is now with Anne Duffield, should still have the speed to burn off his rivals in the event named in honour of Le Garcon D'Or.
Both the maiden and the nursery look open affairs so Infinity Bond and Wigan Pier are offered up as possible winners but with no stronger a recommendation than that.
Linda Perratt's Shunkawakhan looks the pick of a strong tartan challenge in the seven-furlong handicap and the fact connections have tried everything from six to ten furlongs would suggest they're not quite sure of what Tamsou's best distance really is.
It may be, of course, that the colt doesn't have one but hopefully not, as he's the nap in the finale so the trip is the least of his problems.
Had the bookies known how things were going to go further west 24 hours ago, perhaps they might have withdrawn their offer to help underwrite the Musselburgh card as they didn't have things all their own way at Ayr.
While the opener went to 5-1 shot Jaconet, David Barron's charge was still a heavily backed winner as he'd been available at over twice those odds, and the good guys got it right again when odds-on shot Snow Bay lifted the next.
The wheels came off ever so slightly thereafter although supporters of Mr Goldie weren't complaining when Papa's Princess (10-1) led home a 1-2 for the Renfrewshire handler.
Following another course victory, his third, for Bijou Dan, who seems to have had more trainers than Hearts, Esoterica went on to complete a double for the Goldie yard with joint favourite Conjecture helping some punters head home with a spring in their step after success in the finale.
Followers of the nap, and the other joint market leader, Whinhill House, trooped out of the Craigie course rather more wearily.
Meanwhile, Kamsin ran out a brave winner of yesterday's BMW 139th Deutsches Derby as British raider Top Lock could finish only third.
The Andrew Balding-trained runner was joined by Aidan O'Brien's King Of Rome in the 16-runner event at Hamburg but neither could top the pace-setting victor.
The full article contains 590 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
