At two o'clock on Saturday, the speakers at Sandown were belting out Billy Joel's Uptown Girl, appropriate accompaniment for those indulging in complimentary massage, make-up and manicure in the specially erected “Pamper Zone”.

A few years back, such diversions on a racecourse would have been unthinkable. Music and make-up? You can imagine the moustaches of the establishment bristling with indignation. But racing is adjusting to the fact that it needs to offer more than horses and betting if it is to survive and prosper in the overcrowded leisure market.

There were 14,000 at Sandown on Saturday. For a substandard Eclipse, it was a fine turnout. But there will be more there on Thursday week, when a modest racing programme is already sold out thanks to an after-hours appearance by Girls Aloud. The same will apply when Madness hit Esher next month.

Madness pulled in 15,000 at Doncaster last Saturday, while a set by Bryan Adams broke the crowd record on Newmarket's July course. Everywhere you look, music is the food of love for racing.

Even the most reactionary figures are now resigned to this trend. Most would also acknowledge that the huge increase in women attending racing is to be welcomed, even if many are wooed by style competitions and facilities more normally found in expensive spas.

But there are salutary lessons here for the creators of the Sovereign Series, launched last week with the optimistic rattle of a begging-bowl. The concept of packaging existing elite races into a season-long championship may have the virtue of purity but it will need more than that to achieve its stated aim of attracting a vast new TV audience.

Sad though it may seem to those within the industry, there is no likelihood of a mass market being drawn by horses alone - and equally little chance of terrestrial TV companies paying millions of pounds to show them.

If Sovereign is to work, it requires inventive thinking. It needs more jockeys to become celebrities in a way they have never done before. And that may be beyond the wit of the most inventive marketing men.