personally speaking.

​Although, as is my habit, I watched all of I.T.V.’s coverage of racing yesterday, with the exception of The Morning Show as I fell asleep not long into the programme – who cares what the excellent Adele and her two male cohorts tip, not me anyway – my concentration in the afternoon was severely affected by my other half, who usually takes pity on me and leaves me in peace on Saturdays, took to the sofa and insisted on jabbering, making noisy note of the coloration of the horses, the shape of blazes and other matters that have little to do with forming opinions and race-watching.
Watching horse racing is, to me, a ritual similar in spiritual appeal as someone of faith attending their local church, synagogue, mosque or prayer meeting. When the money is down, though, I accept that watching racing can be exactly like the latter, with prayers offered to any denominational god willing to listen.
Not that I have money on the horses nowadays: too tight-fisted and poor to risk the hard-earned on a horse. Anyway, it takes away the spirituality from the sport to back a horse, I feel. How could I be happy for Rob Hornby enjoying a day in the sun yesterday if I am too concentrated on the amount of money I would have lost if I had accompanied my fancy for Faylaq with a walk to the bookmakers?
I fully understand the hand-in-glove relationship horse racing has with the betting industry and how poorer the sport would be without bookmakers, yet in my naivety I wish it was not so. Horse racing could not exist in this country if people did not bet on the horses, and perhaps it would be the same all around the world. Even so, though I do not believe in the overly dramatic words of John Fitzgerald, who upon inheriting the land upon which Manchester races were held, said. ‘throughout the Race days, the greater mass of our working people gather, not to see a Race, which lasts two minutes of time, but to gamble according to their power, and to drink not for refreshment, but for drinking’s sake, till hundreds of them issue from those booths too drunk to walk home alone, and carry to their wretched families the sight of degradation, besides having lost a month or two of wages by gambling,’ He finished his diatribe with, and let us hope no one from the Gambling Commission knows of John Fitzgerald or reads my quotation of his finest, though worst, hour. ‘I earnestly beg them – he is referring to the ladies, gentleman and magistrates who attend the races – to help in shielding the daughters of our poorer brethren from the many pollutions that will meet them on the racecourse.’
I actual equally admire the gambler who walk up to a bookmaker and hands over bundles of cash, risking it all on an odds-on favourite as I admire the bookmaker who backs his own judgement and knocks out an odds-on favourite until its even-money or better. I could not do it; I lack the strength of character, the inner courage to lay the future on the line. To my way of thinking, this kind of heroism should be encouraged as acts of risk-taking in this manner is now foreign in the everyday world we live in. We are, as a species, becoming risk averse, with every man jack of us, every institution, likewise politicians, always plumping for the easy alternative, as with wanting to solve the problem of addictive gambling by making life difficult for those who bet as a hobby. As Winston Churchill once said. ‘Jaw, jaw, is better than war, war.’ By which I mean, talk to the addicted and help them find a cure for their addiction, do not declare war on the innocent.’
I did not declare war on my other half yesterday. I bore her yapping lightly, having long ago given-up hope of her accepting my faith as non-negotiable, the manna which keeps my light of life burning. Without racing, where would I be? Dead, no doubt, and at my own hand.
As it is, the light does not burn as bright as it once did. Horse racing remains as addictive as the taste of alcohol is to the alcoholic, but now I am in my seventies I realise that it is possible the next Eclipse might be my last, as Nick Rocket might be my last Grand National winner and because of that realisation I must pay greater attention, not less, to every horse race that comes to me through the television. 
If I should win the Euro-Lottery, if the amount was ridiculously enormous, I would donate the majority of it to horse racing and equine charities. That would be my one act of heroism in this life. A man should always want to protect that which he loves.
Hurray to me. And I wish you all good fortune in your betting endeavours. Be cautiously heroic, and honour your prayers.