Accommodation near the smaller festival towns is booked a year ahead by returning parties. Book a table years in advance, travel as a party of ten to twenty, coordinate outfits with real seriousness, share a hospitality box, and reconvene at the same fixture annually.

The March jumps festival, the April national, the June royal meeting, the July summer festival, the October Paris championship, the November Melbourne fixture, and the March Dubai finale. December to February in the north is thin for the social fixtures, though the winter racing calendar continues and the Gulf carnival season fills part of the gap.

March, April, June, July, and the first week of October in the northern season, plus the first Tuesday of November in the southern one. This is the most precisely dated calendar in the catalog: these fixtures have occupied the same week for well over a century.