Phil Bell has vowed to bring the people of Brighton and Hove back to their local course.

The unique hill top course is preparing to revive it's traditional three-day August festival next week, when feature races the Brighton Mile and the Brighton Challenge Cup will top the bill.

More than 4,000 punters are expected on each of the days, attracted not just by the racing but also a range of other attractions plus the thought of some sunshine and sea air.

Bell, general manager at the resurgent course, is convinced a day or two by the sea, coupled with the city's range of evening entertainment, will pull in visitors by the thousand.

Now he is intent on enticing back local punters.

For them, memories of the track's dark days are harder to erase and being by the sea offers no novelty value.

Which means the way to get them back is to improve the quality of racing and throw in some extra entertainment.

Bell, whose enthusiasm and ideas have revived the Brighton track after years of decline, reckons up to half of his summertime regulars come from inside, or within half an hour of, the M25.

He said: "If you wake up in a fairly grim suburb of London and it's sunny, a day at Brighton races is quite appealing.

"Brighton is a city where people like having fun and going out.

"At the same time we're hoping long term this three-day meeting will be something for the city where people come and have a bit of a party.

"It's not just about racing. It's about coming and having a social time.

"In Galway they have a seven-day meeting and the whole city goes racing at least once or twice a week.

"I think Brighton could be like that. It's a summer party at the races and I think the people of Brighton will respond to it."

Brighton has made money in each of the last five years but is paying off the £5 million invested in upgrading facilities.

Now Bell is looking at ploughing profits into prize money to help attract top horses and jockeys.

He said: "The biggest problem is getting local people used to coming back here. If you were in your late teens or early 20s when this place was having a bad run you wouldn't have come so now would you take your kids?

"We want to change that. We've got a stilt walker and fire eater and an Elvis impersonator. We've got parachutes coming in so it's a fun three days.

"On the racing side, we hope in five or ten years we will have some really big prize money races.

"The Brighton Mile is worth £30,000 but we want that to become £40,000 and then £50,000 and give the Brighton regulars some good racing to enjoy.

"We want to get people in the city to walk up the hill and see good racing. This is the fixture we would aim to get those people at."

Coming straight after Glorious Goodwood, the Brighton three-dayer will revive memories of the heyday of Sussex racing when the Lewes track was also in business and the county staged a fortnight of action.

Phillip Grimstone is still a regular at Brighton and typical of the race fan whose imagination was captured in those great days.

He said: "My parents brought me up here when I was seven or eight in the early Sixties.

"We used to go in the East Enclosure, which is no longer used for racing. There were enormous crowds and a great buzz.

"The whole season was good but it really did take off in August.

"We had 25,000 people. There were special buses from town and the queues were enormous.

"As kids we used to go around looking for tickets on the floor that might have been winners and we found them occasionally."

As much as tradition, however, the three-dayer is about looking forward. Bell's comparison with Galway is significant. The two places have a similar buzz and even adopted the same slogan, "The place to be", a few years ago.

As for competing with Goodwood, that might be asking a lot of Brighton, but Bell believes race fans might spend a day or two at both meetings and adds: "There's more to do in the evening here than at Goodwood."

Tuesday's action is being called Racing's Big Day Out. A £10 ticket covers the afternoon's race card, featuring the £20,000 totesport Brighton Challenge Cup, plus admission to dog racing at Hove in the evening.

Wednesday is John Smith's Brighton Mile Day. Then comes Ladies Evening on Thursday, when a new champagne bar will be opened and music and dancing laid on.

Raceday tickets and corporate hospitality are going fast and all 19 races are sponsored.

Bell admits staging a three-dayer could be a gamble but, with financial backing like that, it's more a calculated risk than a blind bit of pin-sticking. Now he hopes the locals respond.