The Racing Week

By Ian Henderson

I don't understand why gamblers in a betting office are reviled and bankers who do the same job are revered. The only difference that I can see is the fact that the ones in the betting shop are more honest because they at least use their own money. The bankers on the other hand use taxpayers’ money to gamble with and when they lose and bring the country to its knees they then get more taxpayers money to carry on gambling. It doesn’t take the brains of Britain to work out that this is fraud on a massive scale but these bankers don’t want to pay tax either. They say that these valuable employees will flee the country if they are taxed. Excuse me but we all pay tax so that these bastards can gamble it away and then they say they don’t want to pay any. When you see what the government is going to do with the money, who can blame them? These Bwankers working in the Shitty of London should all be fired and then exported abroad. The government has to go along with them of course because the Shitty of London is about the only tax paying industry that we have left. Maggot Thatcher destroyed what was left of British Industry and all we have left is an arms industry and British Gas. All the rest has been sold off abroad. Gamcare should make Bankers and Government Ministers Honorary Members. A Government Minister once described the denizens of betting shops as ‘low life’.

Going bust Dubai

Government Ministers and MPs should go and look in a mirror if they want to see the real low-lifes. Britain is bust and will never ever recover. Better get used to it.

Dubai has also gone bust following on Iceland but its ruler Sheikh Mohammed is in control of British Racing, well nearly, and the collapse of Dubai has sent a shudder through the racing world. It soon became apparent however that he is still spending fortunes in the sales rings and all is OK. The recession could have a good effect on the breeding market because the only horses selling are the well bred ones. The draught is blowing a chilly breeze now but hey, the bankers are getting their bonuses and maybe somebody could convince some of them to buy a couple of racehorses.

I am about to cancel my subscription to the Racing Post because the print has become so small now that I have to use a magnifying glass to read it. I thought that this was a paper saving idea but apparently not. It is the ink that is expensive. We all know that a laser printer is cheap to run and an ink jet printer is expensive but just how expensive this ink is was exposed in a paper this week. At £3500 a litre it is four times the price of Chanel No.5. No wonder they have reduced the size of the print! I have decided to give my girlfriend a bottle of printing ink this Christmas just to show how much I love her. Guess who is going to turn into an ethnic minority on Christmas Day?

Racing, which is run mainly for bookmakers’ benefit, has just gone totally idiotic. The number of meetings has increased from 1200 a year to 1500 a year in just 2 years. A 25% increase and yet all we get for that is a worsening of prize money to loud moans from owners and trainers and a further worsening of the overall quality of the racing and that seriously affects the punter. Nobody gains from ever increasing numbers of meetings. And the idiots in charge can’t see that there is only so much money out there and spread it all too thinly and everybody suffers. Butter spread to thinly doesn’t taste of butter any more. It’s not rocket science.

And that brings me onto another gripe. When was rocket science deemed to be the apogee of ability and wisdom? A rocket is a simple tube stuffed with fuel. You light the touch paper and stand back. It takes off. Where is the amazing science in that? The Chinese knew all about that 2000 years ago. Why don’t they use brain surgery or civil engineering as an example? A mobile phone uses more science than a rocket!

That’s all.

Ian Henderson