Many a winner of The X Factor has experienced the huge gulf that can exist between performing for the television cameras and facing the public, but appearing as part of a package with a day of horseracing must be among the 2011 winners' more surreal gigs.

"Make some noise," a local radio compere tells a large crowd who don't seem aware that Little Mix just smashed the Spice Girls' US record for the highest-charting debut from a British girl group. Luckily, there are screams from the "Little Mixers", the rows of hardcore fans who have waited for this moment since Our Obsession romped home in the 1.50.

The band have not been on an entirely steady trajectory since they won pop's equivalent of the Grand National. Hurdles have included the flying bottle that struck Leigh-Anne Pinnock at one recent gig. They have shifted tons of records to confirmed fans – such as the tot frantically waving a wooden horse's head on a stick during Stereo Soldier – but it takes a cover of Destiny's Child's Bootylicious to stir the uninitiated masses.

The likable girls grin on defiantly, despite only having one or two really catchy songs (DNA and arms-aloft ballad Always Together) and some truly awful outfits. Simon Cowell's management team makes some odd decisions for them: who thought world domination would be helped by a taped interview section featuring Perrie Edwards's impression of a goat?

"They're awful," decides one grim-faced young chap as the thinning crowd gradually says "neigh". The Little Mixers roar last year's UK No 1 Wings past the finish line, but over a longer course, it doesn't look certain they'll be able to go the distance.