Kempton Park’s Community Raceday, celebrating 80 years since Victory in Europe, attracted a bumper crowd to the Sunbury-on-Thames track on Bank Holiday Monday, with a thoroughly entertaining afternoon’s racing with plenty of tight finishes.

The opening race on the card certainly provided plenty of drama after Ahead Of Fashion beat the odds-on shot Private Affair by a neck.

Celebrations were put on hold for the connections of the winner after a stewards enquiry was announced. Twenty minutes later the placings where reversed after the Dominic Ffench Davis-trained Ahead Of Fashion was deemed to have cut across

The Richard Hannon-trained juvenile, sent off at 8-15, finished a neck second after being carried wide by first-past-the-post Ahead Of Fashion.

"It was a very anxious wait, not quite the way you want to do it, but it's still amazing to win," said owner Joe Parkin of the A Bit On The Side syndicate. "I had my father-in-law saying there's no way it would be reversed, and still believes that, but Richard thought he had a chance.

"He's such a lovely horse, he's got a great temperament and Richard and Sean [Levey, jockey] have done a super job with him. He's doing everything we want him to do just now and we can't wait to see what's next."

Private Affair was scoring at the second attempt following a close defeat on his debut at Newbury last month. He holds entries in valuable sales races later in the year but could step up to six furlongs next, with Hannon eyeing the Woodcote Stakes at Epsom.

Hannon and Levey enjoyed a much more straightforward success later in the afternoon when Persian Spirit got the better of Isabella Castile by a neck to take the 6f fillies handicap.

Hannon said: "She's got a lot of speed and did it the hard way, virtually making all, and it's hard to do that here as they come late and nine times out of ten they mug you on the line. She was very brave, so it's not been a bad day at all."

First time cheekpieces seemed to help the chances of Crestofdistinction after the three-year-old made all under David Probert to win by three and a half lengths in the 6f maiden stakes.

I Follow Rivers defied both top weight and a 6lb penalty to score in the 7f handicap by a neck from Muy Muy Loco. A week ago the three-year-old won at Wolverhampton after previously finishing third.

Charmaine made it two wins in a row after scoring in the 1m 3f handicap. The filly scored at Southwell three months ago for James Fanshawe.

There was yet another close finish in the sixth race on the card when Yuvraaj got up on the line to take the honours in Division One of the London Mile Series qualifier with Marco Ghiani in the plate.

A good second at this course 20 days ago, the well backed Orchard went one better after holding on to beat Virtue Patience by a neck in Division Two of the Mile Series qualifier.

Newmarket trainer John Butler took the honours in the finale on the card after Havana Touch got his head in front for just the second time in 17 attempts to score by one and a half lengths.

By Peter Moore