At Grass

PLS Trustee, Julian Wild, reads Philip Larkin's poem 'At Grass' on the finishing line at Beverley Racecourse at the end of an organised walk featuring the history of horse racing in the town conducted during the 2024 Walking East Yorkshire Festival.
Larkin wrote the poem 'At Grass' after watching a short film about Brown Jack, a famous racehorse of the 1930s who'd been retired to stud. The video uses contemporary images of Beverley racecourse and the surrounding common pasture land but seeks to evoke the pre-war images of the poem.
Larkin loved visiting Beverley and, although he never went to the races there, he was well aware of its racecourse, cycling past it on his way to the nearby village of Bishop Burton.