Ladies' Day at Musselburgh Racecourse is a brassy, sassy, dressy, messy affair – and the horses come second

THERE may be the sound of thundering hooves, of cursing bookies and the echoing whack of whip on rump, but I really couldn't say. This is Ladies Day at Musselburgh Racecourse and all I can hear are women. Let me qualify that.

All I can hear are women, all I can see are women, all I can smell are women. Perhaps Musselburgh, on every other day of the racing calendar, is distinguished by the good, honest reek of horse dung; today, however, the air hangs heavy with Fake Bake.

Ladies' Day was introduced at Musselburgh six years ago to encourage women to become regular race-goers. Whether that has succeeded, I do not know, but as a one-day wonder it is a phenomenon. There are 8,000 people here today, the vast majority of them female, intent on the good time to end all good times, and dressed with appropriate fabulosity.

The stalwart punters - crag-faced men in bunnets, their fingers inky from the Racing Post - appear to be an entirely different species, never mind gender, from these exultant glamazons. There are so many false eyelashes that, laid end to end, they would stretch up the road to Harvey Nicks in Edinburgh, and so many false nails that they would reach all the way back down again. There is enough spray-on tan to paint the Scott Monument orange, with enough left over for Greyfriars Bobby.

Preparations begin early. Some women keep savings accounts to help them afford their Ladies' Day outfit. Others have an early start on the day itself, rising at dawn to do their hair and put their face on. "We were in the shop from quarter to six getting ready for this," says Jane Killen, one of a party of hairdressers and beauticians from Prestonpans.

"We come here every year without fail," says her pal Nicola Scott. "It's a brilliant day. We love the atmosphere, we love the people, and we love the beverage."

Ah, the beverage. Musselburgh Ladies' Day runs on booze. Wearing heels and getting wellied, that's what it's all about. Magnums of champers sell at 75 a chuck. There are also mojitos, rum punch and something called a raspberry mule, a cocktail which could equally describe the footwear of many here. The atmosphere - dressy, brassy, messy, sassy - feels like a wedding. Today we are gathered to celebrate the coming together of gin and tonic. Arlene Stuart, 43, sums up the mood: "I've drunk my body weight in champagne. I've eaten about five pies. I'm feeling good."

All around, people are knocking it back as if Alex Salmond were about to introduce prohibition. A girl in a pink tutu and shoes that would grace an S&M dungeon accessorises with a big glass of ros. Another young woman negotiates the steep stone steps down through the stand from Freddie's Bar in a thigh-squeezing dress and four-inch heels while carrying a bottle of Prosecco and seeking advice on her mobile about who to back in the fourth. "Irish Boy or Rothesay Chancer," she asks. "Which ay them is a guid horse?"

The great trick at Musselburgh is smuggling in your own drink so you don't have to pay bar prices. Security search all bags, but it seems there are ways of beating the system. I hear about one group of nurses who decanted white wine into colostomy bags and strapped them to their thighs. There is also a rumour going around that some enterprising soul hid a bottle of pinot noir inside a hollowed-out baguette.

"Oh, aye," confirms a security guard, an amiable man-mountain, when I ask about this. "That's been tried. But you can tell by the weight. Mind, they'll try anything and everything."

"There was a woman came in today with jelly," laughs his colleague. "But I smelled it and it was pure alcohol."

All the confiscated bevvy is poured away, which will be scant consolation for those whose unopened bottles of Mot and Stoli are dumped into big black bins. Peering into one of those is an eye-opener. There's a bag of wine wrapped in tin foil which someone tried to pass off as roast chicken. Best of all is a tube of Pringles with a bottle inside, some crisps on top as camouflage, and the top sealed shut. Amazing. Here is the innate Scottish ingenuity and enterprise of which we are rightly proud.

"It's ridiculous," says Pauline Hadden, 51, from Danderhall, who has had a slab of canned cocktails confiscated by security. "They charge you 25 to get in, then treat you like bloody criminals for bringing alcohol. Well, I won't be back."

The gates opened at 11am. There was a great cantering to get in and bag the best picnic spots. At Wallyford, the nearest railway station, the platform was mobbed as racegoers made for the shuttle-bus. "And we're off!" shouted one of the lairy lads up the back. "C'moan driver, pit the fit doon!" Further up the bus, where the women sat, fascinators poked up above the backs of seats like the quivering crests of exotic birds. The lads were less exotic. In shiny suits and skinny ties, diamond studs in their ears, they looked like Vinnie Jones dressed by Burton.

"Is Kieren Fallon here the day?" asked one.

"Naw," said his mate. "This is the poor man's Ascot."

Is that true? Maybe so. But it's the wrong way to look at it. Musselburgh Ladies' Day is, in fact, a very rich experience. It has no pretensions to be anything other than what it is - exuberantly vulgar and big-hearted hedonism. It is classless but pure class. Sure, Ascot was attended by Bruce Forsyth, but Musselburgh has "Bruce fae Fife" - 21-year-old Bruce Gregory from Lochgelly, here on the ran-dan with a party of 22 pals. "I'm just a plumber," he says. "But next week I'll still be bevvyin'. First time in a suit - here we go!"

Jenny Kohler, 44, actually lives very near Ascot but is here today as part of her sister's birthday celebrations. "Musselburgh is much better," she says. "You go to Ascot and all the ladies are in their posh frocks and posh hats, but by the end of the day they are covered in their own puke. And you queue half an hour for a wee."

Hats are important at Musselburgh, too. There is a competition for the best one. "Just give me the medal now," says Louise Morrison, a young nurse from Dalkeith, brimming with confidence. She has converted a black topper into a sort of merry-go-round using the octagonal lid from a tin of Quality Street and some toy horses "borrowed" from her 10-year-old nephew. "He doesn't know I've drilled holes in them."

Morrison faces strong competition from a group of thirtysomething friends from Edinburgh, each of whom has created a hat based on a different song. Lesley Scott, 37, is wearing a Napoleonic bicorn representing Waterloo by Abba. "We have two others in our party," she says. "Strawberry Fields Forever and Knocking On Heaven's Door. They are at the bar, but you'll be able to identify them. They are very large. The hats that is, not the ladies."

It isn't only women who have made an effort. Some of the men are equally eye-catching. One chap has a sporran so fluffy it must surely be Pomeranian. Then there's Harry Crombie, 27, an estate agent from Edinburgh in a slim-fitting white suit and matching top hat, hoping to be crowned Musselburgh's King of Style. "I came in second place last year," he says. "I enjoy the admiration of all the adoring ladies." In the end, however, he loses out to a man wearing his grandfather's old tweeds.

With the focus very much on fashion, it is easy to forget there is racing going on. The jockeys and horses in the parade ring are watched by a pretty thin crowd. These are not the fillies we are here to see. Yet the races themselves get everyone going. Many of the women swap their heels for pumps, the better to leap up and down in support of their chosen horse. Chipolatas go flying across picnic rugs when Red Kestrel comes in at 7/1. On the PA, the Black Eyed Peas are giving it "I got my money/Let's spend it up." One of the bookies, 57-year-old Cumbie Bowers from Glenrothes, resplendent in trilby and pink jumper, takes a moment to reflect on the day's punters. "Mostly it's daft women," he says. "But that's the kind you want."

As the racing ends at around half past five, most people begin to leave. The steps of the stand drip with spilt fizz. Chalk-faced young women teeter-totter to the portable toilets, betting slips tucked into their cleavage. Outside, a little way down the street, there's a punch up between lads from Niddrie and Tranent; one, with blood polka-dotting his shirt, is sick on the pavement. Teenage girls from the Loretto boarding school, demure in long kilts, look on aghast.

Back inside, as the Saltire flies from the roof of the stand, Louise Morrison, the nurse from Dalkeith with the merry-go-round hat, says: "Next year we're going to have my hen do here," she says. "So look out, we'll be back!