LADIES Day at the races is a much anticipated event, a chance for women to get dressed up and enjoy the sunshine.
Brighton Racecourse hosted its annual Ladies Day and the windy weather did not deter the glamorous racegoers from attending.
Brighton hosts the event on the first Thursday every year of its Festival of Racing and has said that an average of 1,500 bottles of Prosecco are consumed.
The August festival was cancelled last year due to the pandemic, so organisers have highlighted the need to 'make up for missed moments'.
These pictures show that that's exactly what many women did, they can be seen holding on to hats and clutching umbrellas but all with smiles on their faces.
While there is no formal dress code for the event, most attendees chose to wear floral dresses and heels accompanied by fascinators and hats.
To encourage fancy fashion, the racecourse also held style awards for which the theme was 'forgotten favourites.'
Judges used photos taken from the flower wall and by the designated 'spotter' in the crowd to decide who won the prize.
This year the £500 prize was awarded to Hannah Attrell who wore a red Karen Millen dress with a Primark headband, H&M shoes and a Gucci bag.
Ladies Day has been around since the 1800s when women were given discounted prices for race tickets.
The term dates back to 1823, when an anonymous poet described Thursday at the Royal Ascot as "Ladies Day... when the women, like angels, look sweetly divine."
Across the UK many racecourses make Ladies Day synonymous with other fashion contests such as best dressed lady, best hat and the best dressed couple.
Despite the term being used colloquially at Ascot, it is not officially recognised by organisers.
In 2017 Nick Smith, the event's director of racing, told The Telegraph: "We are comfortable with the public calling it that, but to market it as such would cause confusion as ladies’ days away from Ascot are completely different.
"We don’t have best dressed competitions–for either sex–and we don’t think catwalks and such like is what it is about."
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