Raise a glass to Christmas racing

For followers of racing, today does not exist. Nor did yesterday and nor, of course, does tomorrow. Except for a few valiant greyhound tracks, racing has simply stopped - all the better to rev itself up for the St Stephen's Day Bonanza.

In fact, St Stephen's Day's 10 meetings constitute no more than the Bank Holiday norm. But with Kempton and the King George VI Chase as its showpiece, December 26th gives the impression of being the day for which the whole year has waited.

Racing no longer has the ability to bring England to a standstill, as Derby Day, for example, once had the power to do (or at least gave the illusion of doing). But when, as on St Stephen's Day, we are at a standstill already, a great popular meeting like Kempton will hold us there.

At breathless capacity, the King George crowd will be no more than around 20,000, and the viewing figures for Channel 4 Racing will be a quarter of those for EastEnders. Yet those who watch this meeting, that race, are more than just a crowd or a statistic. Somehow, they will come together to form a vital and enthralled world.

It helps, of course, that they will also form part of the whole St Stephen's Day "Sport Rules OK" ethos, in which, after the intimate insularity of the previous day, the doors are flung open on to the great outdoors. Wrapped in their new scarves, men will slope off to escape turkey croquettes, malfunctioning fairy lights and toys without batteries. Hangovers will be blasted by gusts of icy wind and - what the hell - four double whiskies.

No other sporting day holds quite the same quality of robust, devil-may-care joyfulness. I have always spent St Stephen's Day dog racing with my father, inhaling the prevailing winds of amiable cynicism, and revelling in the atmosphere of bonhomie and steel created by the bookmakers who, at the end of the meeting, would wander into the bar like south London Santas, wads of notes tumbling out of their satchels and on to the counter.

After the sentimentalities of Christmas, it was all wonderfully bracing. Yet there was sentimentality there, albeit well-hidden, and this would always show itself during the screening of the King George at Kempton. It showed itself, for example, when shrewd gamblers were unable to conceal their childlike delight in the fourth victory of Desert Orchid in 1990. They might have bet against him but, however hard they tried, they just could not hope for his defeat.

This is the power that the great National Hunt contests wield over their audience: they allow us to form relationships with the horses which transcend pettier allegiances. During those long, pilgrimage-like races, we will see a horse unearth ever-deeper reserves of courage, conquering fatigue with each triumphant leap. We will see him find himself. It is damn-near impossible not to identify with him, to open the heart to him.

The flat, of course, is so different. The victories last season of those gallant five-year-olds, Pilsudski and Singspiel, were as moving as anything that followers of the flat will ever see; yet still there was something defiant of identification about those sleek bursts of thoroughbred speed. A flat horse is just too perfect ever to be like us. But a National Hunt horse can, at his best, seem like a human being with all the bad stuff left out.

On St Stephen's Day, the crowd will be unified in its desire to see such a horse. Possibly it will see the coronation of a "new Desert Orchid", in the shape of one of the three greys hoping to contest the King George: One Man, bidding for a hat-trick, Suny Bay, winner of the Hennessy, and Senor El Betrutti, who won the Tripleprint Gold Cup at Cheltenham.

Waiting for that final victorious leap, spectators and spectacle will form a bound as strong as any in sport. The sight of the winning horse, exhausted head proudly alert to the answering knowledge of the crowd, will undoubtedly be magnificent. All the more so if my Christmas prayer has been answered, and none of these horses - anonymous bays, as well as glamorous greys - has been asked to pay too high a price for the fulfilment of our festive desires.