Ascot is performing a delicate balancing act as it seeks to restore the lost glories of the royal meeting. Determinedly populist in promoting to a wider audience, after the plunge in public enclosure attendances last year, Ascot is simultaneously placating the opinion-formers of the Royal Enclosure by beefing up dress codes and banning bare flesh.

“Last year we were fighting fires but we're on the front foot in many ways now,” Nick Smith, the head of public relations, explained. This means a crackdown on slipping sartorial standards coinciding, perhaps incongruously, with a concerted bid to sell the event in pubs and clubs.

Smith sees no contradictions. “People love dressing up for Royal Ascot and we have plenty of complaints about those who break the code,” he said. “We're insisting that ties and jackets are actually worn in the general enclosure this year and we've been more specific about certain requirements in the Royal Enclosure. I think people want clarity.”

Ascot has appointed a group sales co-ordinator, Jacky Wilson, who travels a wide area promoting the delights of the meeting at all social levels. “We're going on an all-out marketing campaign to get the numbers back we lost last year,” Smith said.

Advance purchase discounts for the less popular days - Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday - have already been justified. Sales for those days are up around 70 per cent on this stage last year, though the figures are relatively small. About 35,000 badges have been sold so far - roughly the number that dropped off the crowd register last June.

Justified criticisms of facilities in the general enclosure have also been heeded. A new restaurant is under construction near the bandstand, aimed at catering for 1,500 diners a day with the sort of quick-turnover, sit-down meal that is perversely neglected on too many racecourses.

No official word yet on the poisoned chalice position as Grand National starter. Diary understands, though, that Peter Haynes may be stood down this year, despite being cleared of any blame for the shambolic scenes last April.

Haynes is the senior figure among 15 starters and has had the onerous responsiblity of dispatching the 40-runner Aintree field for several years past. However, the ten-minute delay to the 2007 race followed some controversial starts at Cheltenham and led to suggestions that Haynes had lost the trust of a number of jockeys.

An unguarded remark that “a lot of the trouble is with those Irish lads who come over here” did little for his popularity.

Although a subsequent review of National starts, chaired by Robert Waley-Cohen, found he was not culpable, a pragmatic decision is likely and this year's race will probably be started by either Sean McDonald or Hugh Barclay.

Newbury's efforts to ward off an unwelcome takeover have revealed details of anticipated profits from TurfTV's new deals with major bookmakers. In a letter to shareholders, urging rejection of a renewed offer from Guinness Peate Group, Newbury claims it will “receive an estimated £5.6 million in fees over the six years of its licence”. Interested parties will be keen to know how much of their windfalls the racecourses will put into prize-money.

Picking our way through the puddled landscape, it is reassuring to hear that the January rains have also attacked supposedly sunnier climes. Five inches of the stuff fell on Dubai earlier this week, while in southern California the weather has caused alarming problems at the track scheduled to stage the Breeders' Cup in October.

Santa Anita has blamed the wet weather for a drainage issue with the cushion track surface laid last summer. Hailed as a brave break from America's primitive dirt tracks, the enterprise may be short-lived. Having been forced to cancel a weekend meeting, Santa Anita is now considering reverting to dirt.

That grade two hurdles win by Carruthers at Warwick last Saturday - rightly celebrated for the close involvement of one of racing's finest characters, Lord Oaksey - was appropriate in another, less obvious way. Oaksey's son, the barrister Patrick Lawrence, is also a member of the family clan that owns Carruthers. Only days earlier, he had represented Warwick at the British Horseracing Authority inquiry into the late abandonment of a meeting in September. It should be known today if his arguments found favour.

Wishful thinking at racing's central office ... the BHA's website listed Great Leighs among the courses staging racing on Tuesday. Latest possible launch date for the Essex project is actually March 18.