A Denouncement of Horse Racing

Congrats to Tony McCoy for winning his first National on joint favourite Don't Push It. It's nice to know that his victory will have cost the bookies some money for once. Other than that, I really couldn't care less who won. At the end of the day, it certainly won't be me, you or the man in the pub who knows Mon Mome's trainer's wife's best friend's mother who 'knows the horse is on form'.

Horse racing is a 'sport' which has always existed as a way for bookmakers to make money. Obviously, my views are not universal, but I fail to see anything enjoyable about watching horse racing, unless you have money on a horse. And even then, you are pretty damn likely to come home less well off than when you arrived.

The entire culture of training racehorses, of selling studs, of being 'at the races' is frankly ridiculous and unjustifiable to anyone not named William Hill or Paddy Power (God, I hope the man who started Paddy Power was called just that!). It represents a culture detatched from modern life, in the same way that amateurism in football, or not allowing women to exercise, or fighting bears in the streets outside the Globe theatre are alien to modern Britain.

A stupid amount of money changes hands over horses. It falls into two catagories; firstly, money going from one rich man in the Emirates to another in Ireland, in secretive deals done completely outside of sensible limits. Secondly, money from a large number of normal individuals ending up in the hands of a few already rich companies and shareholders.

Probably the most important point though, even though I am no animal rights nut, is the very idea of breeding and training racehorses in the first place. I recently watched a BBC documentary debating the cruelty of having performing animals in circuses. Is training a tiger to balance on a giant ball, something most people would consider abusive and wrong, any worse than deliberately breeding horses to be as fast and slight as possible, so that one small fall causes them to break their legs, at which point they are shot by a man with a bolt gun?

Oh, but the horses "love the thrill of the race" says the shady, generally Irish, trainer (no racism implied there, but it is true that Ireland's image as a premier racehorse training nation doesn't exactly help it step away from its backward and quite frankly irrelevant image. Now, THAT was racist). The horses "have a good life. They provide entertainment" says the man wearing a ridiculous top hat and making archaic hand signals.

Damaging to society, inherently cruel, irrelevant and ultimately pathetic.

There really is nothing Grand about the races. Deepest apologies for ending on a horrible pun, I'm writing this in a hurry.

GM