By Cornelius Lysaght BBC racing correspondent

Goodwood is one of Britain's most picturesque racecourses

British racing prides itself on its diversity; Glorious Goodwood is a perfect example of why.

For five days (Tuesday 29 July to Saturday 1 August), horses will snake their way across and around the twists and turns of the improbable course high up on the scenic Sussex Downs, close to the cathedral city of Chichester.

If the sun is out, thousands of pilgrims, who treat Flat racing's high summer highlight as an annual holiday, will descend; if the weather is not so glorious, most will still be there.

No one would reasonably argue with the notion that there is nothing else quite like it in the world.

Action-wise, the second day feature, the Group One BGC Sussex Stakes, is the big prize of the week, playing as it does a major role in confirming Europe's top three-year-old miler, with its implications for the thoroughbred breeding industry.

This time around, Ireland's Henrythenavigator will be much fancied to extend his unbeaten run of success to four, all at the very highest level, and to bring another major trophy to the Tipperary-based Coolmore racing and breeding empire.

'Henry', trained by Aidan O'Brien, Coolmore's principal trainer, and the mount of their new number one jockey Johnny Murtagh, has carried all before him in the Newmarket and Irish 2000 Guineas and similarly took Royal Ascot's St James's Palace Stakes. He now faces older horses for the first time.

The 2008 Glorious Goodwood meeting has also become a little bit of a test for Flat racing because it is set against a backdrop of recent drunken racecourse rowdiness that is far from glorious.

The British Flat racing season during July has been shaken by the behaviour of hard-drinking elements in the crowd, and ugly incidents of violence at prestige meetings at Sandown and on the July course at Newmarket.

If we want to make racing a family day out, courses will have to make sure their investment in security is commensurate with policing a new crowd BHA chairman Paul Roy

The regulating British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has called for 'zero tolerance' of anybody involved, while a third of members of the influential Racegoers Club - core racegoers - have identified this one issue as racing's biggest turn-off.

The BHA's chairman Paul Roy said: "What has happened recently is a wake-up call for the racecourses and for the industry. Now it's happened, we have to make sure we get the right policing on courses."

These incidents have caused alarm because they are relatively unusual, and are, to my mind, the downside of a successful marketing policy aimed at bringing in new faces to the races.

Once upon a time, racecourses aimed to lure the public with the thought of racing and partying; however, now it is more along the lines of 'come and a have party, and, oh yes, there will be racing too'.

Some visitors are taking the offer more literally than was intended or expected.

Addressing this issue, Roy added: "We do want to appeal to a wider public, but when this is combined with extended drinking opportunities we do have to be aware that it will attract a non-traditional element.

"If we want to make racing a family day out, courses will have to make sure their investment in security is commensurate with policing a new crowd."

Officials at Goodwood say they will be alert. No one wants any 'In-Glorious Goodwood' headlines.