Time to follow in America's tracks

It helps, of course, that Kentucky is horse country - nearby Lexington comprises stud farm after beautiful, leafy stud farm. The racecrowd is knowledgeable - when the track commentator reported that Caller One had rattled off the first quarter-mile of the Breeders' Cup Sprint in 20.82 there was a loud gasp of admiration.

But such appreciation isn't innate and is more wide-reaching. In America, racing's popularity has thrived secondly upon razzmatazz and firstly on understanding. It helps to know what you're celebrating.

Prior to the Breeders' Cup, an exhibition hall in Louisville was packed out two nights in a row by a public hungry to hear professionals talk about the racing to come. Three days before the Kentucky Derby, race fans are invited to attend the track and watch the horses work over breakfast. American trainers and jockeys talk that talk. They hype their horses, hype themselves, hype the race.

Afterwards, it's not just yesterday's papers. Every Kentucky Derby winner's name is mounted on a plaque on Churchill Downs' grandstand, lettered in gold, with a crown next to it if the horse completed the Triple Crown by also landing the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Their names are flashed up on the big screen as a roll call of history, reminding those who watch that they're part of the latest installment.

But most impressive of all is the adjacent Kentucky Derby museum. I don't have a season ticket to the Victoria & Albert and am usually as bored by museums as the next kid, but this was something special. Multi-millionaire owner Michael Tabor thought it was so good, he brought his wife and friends for another look.

You can replay footage of any Kentucky Derby winner you'd like, ride a race on a horse simulator, hear jockeys and trainers recalling great heroes such as Secretariat and Affirmed. All the usual memorabilia is there, but with an emphasis on interaction, touch, sound and, most of all, education.

By pushing buttons, for example, you can find out what hard ground feels like to a horse compared with soft or sloppy.

But the highlight is a 15-minute film viewed on a huge, wraparound 360-degree screen detailing 24 hours in the life of the Kentucky Derby. It cost $10 million (£7.1m) to install.

It places the standing audience amid the training barns on the rear of the track at dawn. You turn to focus on different parts of the screen as the various stories unfold. Jockeys, trainers and racegoers talk about what it means to them. Then there is a wall of sound, and the whole screen bursts into vivid colour, as the gates open for the race.

For the second time in a day I'd been reminded just how exciting racing can be. You leave exhilarated, a racing expert. You step outside and use what you've learned better to enjoy a race meeting.

Our racing is cottoning on to the connection between enthusiasm and understanding. Aintree's Grand National Experience, opened two years ago, offers a race simulator and tours of the course, while Newmarket's National Horseracing Museum has benefited hugely from Hilary Bracegirdle's evangelical approach to the sport.

That takes lots of cash but there are other, simple ideas that work just as well. Epsom once hit upon the excellent notion of erecting plaques in the home straight where past Derby winners had hit the front, but it was too much underplayed. Our racing is more varied and just as exciting as America's. Let's loudly tell everyone why.