to this gloomy gus, the future looks bleak.

​Look, I have a toothache at the moment. I hoped I could get through to the end of July when my next 6-monthly check-up comes round but no, by the weekend I will be on the strongest painkillers I can buy over the counter and drinking soup through a straw. This might be the reason my ‘Gloomy Gus’ persona dominating my thoughts and why my ‘happy cheery self is locked in a cupboard in my brain somewhere. As of this minute, I can think of no reason to be cheerful.
It was the brilliant Patrick Mullins writing for the Racing Post Ultimate Subscribers newsletter that dug the hole I fell into. He was in Marrakesh, I believe it was, representing his country as part of FEGENTRI, the world organisation that encourages amateur riders to fly around the world to ride in amateur races organised by the association to foster goodwill amongst fiercely competitive non-professional horseman. Patrick Mullins is the man to go to if you want more information on this delightfully old-fashioned club for the select few. All I know is that he was in Marrakesh for a party and awards ceremony and he was there as stand-in for John Gleeson who had to attend school and couldn’t pick up his trophy for best boy or whatever it was for. You would have thought his ma’am would have let him off school for a couple of days so he could, as Patrick sort of implied, have learned a few life lessons that would hold him in good stead once he has achieved his academic certificates. Sure, isn’t young Gleeson going to be a jockey, anyway.
In his article Patrick Mullins casually mentioned that Longines sponsored the serious of Fegentri flat races but declined to sponsor the jumps series. This on the same day that it was reported in the Racing Post that the awful ‘One Show’ had chosen to ditch a report on how equine charities retrain and care for ex-racehorses.
Added to which, in order to do everything in its power to ensure the Epsom Derby is undisturbed by protestors, the Jockey Club has spent £150,000 on security and applied for a legal injunction against ‘Animal Rising’ from unlawful protest at the course. Where are we as a society if legal injunction must be applied for in order to stop acts that in British law are illegal. What is the point of the police if it is not capable of preventing criminality when the crime to be committed is advertised on Twitter and in newspapers and with an exact time of the day when the crime will be committed?
I do not know how the sport can survive this tidal wave of negativity. Or how the thoroughbred horse can survive if the ill-informed and bigoted diatribe of ‘Animal Rising’ wins the middle ground. The debate on ‘premierising’ Saturday racing is trivial compared with the consequences of what might or might not happen at Epsom next weekend or Royal Ascot or Glorious Goodwood.
There was a time, not so long ago, when horse racing in this country was ringfenced by its association with aristocracy. No Lords Derby and Roseberry now. The sport may still have the patronage of the Royal Family but will the King be at Epsom next weekend as his mother would have been? Even if attendance at Epsom is in his diary, will his advisors permit his attendance if there is the threat of insurgence by misfits? Sir Winston Churchill was the last prominent politician to breed racehorses and have them in training. 
Slowly but surely this country is sinking into the dystopian morass of Orwell’s ‘1984’. What a good year that was in retrospect. Secreto won the Derby that year, by the way.
To add to the list of woes, national newspapers are reluctant to include race-cards and even the ‘broadsheets’ are becoming less likely to have a dedicated racing columnist. And worst of all, to my mind, is that horse racing in this country is losing out at a rapid rate to countries around the world, all of which have a funding stream that allows both for development of the sport and its infrastructure and for increasing amounts of prize-money that is the honey to the bee.
Horses die. It is as inevitable as people dying. Horses are not farmed for the consumption of their flesh and bones. Horses are the most cared-for animals on the planet. The death of Hill Sixteen at Aintree was not caused by the protests prior to the start but the actions of the protestors most likely contributed to his death. That, though, was doubtless not reported by any newspaper outside of the Racing Post. The odds are short if something similar occurs next weekend at Epsom that another horse will perish, with the added risk of a jockey suffering severe injury.
Sadly, the televised death of a racehorse, or even, God forbid, the death of a jockey, due to Animal Rising protests, might actually turn the tide in our favour. What a dreadful way to win a battle.
Animal Rising give veganism a bad smell. Pate is my only consumption of meat at the moment. I live with a vegetarian. I loathe the thought of animal cruelty. I support, in too small a way for the ease of my conscience, animal charities. Anyone licenced by the B.H.A. found guilty of cruelty or neglect deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered. To me, there is an unwritten but sacred contract that in return for the risk horses are put at for our entertainment, the horse, every horse, should be cared-for to the enth degree for the whole of its life.
But horses will die on British racecourses. One might die today. It is tragic but true. Apart from banning horse racing as bear-baiting and hare-coursing were banned, how do we prevent tragic accidents from happening? We can’t. In the same way there is no way we can sustain the thoroughbred species in this country without the continuation of the sport. Without horse racing, thousands of people will lose employment and the Exchequer will lose billions of pounds in tax revenue.
I need an appointment with a dentist. If only racing’s woes could be as easily attended to!