Racing: Evergreens upstage the evangelical meeting: As Lingfield continues the sport's seventh-day experiment, some of the most enduring attractions perform elsewhere

THE SIDESHOW was at Lingfield, the big wheels at Deauville and Goodwood. On a weekend when Britain staged a Sunday race-meeting for the third time, the real attractions were provided not by the innovators but by the irreplaceable.

After 50-year-old Willie Carson had outmanoeuvred 28 rivals to win Goodwood's Stewards' Cup on Saturday for his 3,500th winner, Lester Piggott and Vincent O'Brien, 57 and 76 respectively, combined to defeat some of Europe's top sprinters with College Chapel at Deauville.

Even in the elegant enclosures of Deauville, Piggott's win in the Group Two Prix Maurice de Gheest was greeted with exuberant applause. It was his first success at the Normandy course - where he once 'borrowed' another jockey's whip during a race - since 1984.

College Chapel, brought with a perfectly timed run from the rear of the field, collared Pat Eddery on the long-time leader Wolfhound at the furlong pole before holding off the Chantilly-trained Danakal and Matelot. Wolfhound was best of the British in fourth, with David Elsworth's representative, Rustic Craft, ninth and the Michael Stoute- trained Hazaam 13th of 14.

The success made it all the harder to fathom how College Chapel's almost impeccable five- race career could have been disrupted by Hamas in the July Cup. Piggott, though, had an explanation: 'He'd probably be still unbeaten if he hadn't been badly drawn in the July Cup. The watering at Newmarket hadn't covered the whole track and he was drawn the side where no water had fallen, so it was too firm for him.' College Chapel will probably run next in the Group One Haydock Sprint Cup on 4 September, according to Charles O'Brien who represented his father.

College Chapel's win and the victory of the Dermot Weld- trained Market Booster in the day's other important race, the Group One, pounds 114,000 Bayerisches-Zuchtrennen at Munich, provided proof that Irish racing is again producing quality Flat performers in sufficient numbers to be able to compete in the international arena. A couple of years ago they could hardly muster a decent defence of their own races.

Other performances to note: Mark Johnston stopped terrorising southern stables in Britain long enough to advertise the benefits of training in Middleham to a new audience in Munich by winning a Listed sprint with Branston Abby; Coup De Genie, a juvenile sister to Machiavellian, was an impressive winner of the Prix de Cabourg for Francois Boutin and Cash Asmussen. Wolfhound's half- brother, Foxhound, was second.

Not many luminaries at Lingfield, but the day must be counted a success. The crowd of 8,736 was the largest at the Surrey track since the Fifties and it has to be emphasised that this was just the figure for paying adults. A higher than usual proportion of children swelled the numbers considerably and delighted Nigel Clark, chairman of the Jockey Club's Sunday racing campaign.

'It is fantastic to see a new set of racing people, particularly children,' Clark said. 'This is how we can broaden racing's base.'

With the clerk of the course sporting a stetson (not to reinforce the misconception that all racing administrators are cowboys but because country and western was the theme for the day), the crowd was never likely to be of the tweed and trilby, or even flannel and panama variety. How many will come back when there are no funfairs to distract the kids is another question.

The primary purpose, of course, was to remind the Government that the loudest voices in racing would like to stage the sport regularly on Sundays with on- and off-course betting. Yesterday's meeting, with the vulgarity and sweatiness of the betting ring absent, again placed the emphasis on how wholesome a day at the races can be.

It was a perspective that drew admiration from the first minister of state to attend a Sunday fixture, Jeremy Hanley MP. 'The atmosphere here is like no day I can remember at the races,' Hanley said. 'Families want to be here. To be able to have the odd flutter won't hurt anyone.'

Peter Walwyn, a winner on the day with Tahdid, gave a more considered welcome, hinting that not everyone in the industry might benefit. 'Sunday racing is fine,' the trainer said, 'as long as it's in the right place and everyone from the gateman up is rewarded properly.'

(Photograph omitted)