I am not someone who envies the rich. As long as I do not personally become poorer than I am content with my lot. I can live happily with the few who have so much wealth that they can lose 100-Grand and not feel the pinch of looming poverty. Let's be honest, without the wealthy, the filthy rich and the obscenely well-to-do, this sport would be even more impoverished than it is. But it does beg the question, why can't the racing rich help the sport thrive; why can't they extend the hand of wealth so that racing can improve its infrastructure, to speed along the programme of allowing female jockeys to have separate changing areas at racecourses, to invest in prize-money, to donate large quantities of money to the Injured Jockeys Fund, Racing Welfare, racehorse rehabiliation charities. Perhaps they already give a little but they could so easily give a lot more.
To choose six who appear on the Sunday Times Rich List: Owners of Lingfield and other Arc racecourses, the Reuben brothers weigh-in at £27.971 billion; Kirsten Rausing's assets stand at £12.6 billion; Lord and Lady Bamford are getting by with a mere £10.318 billion to call on. Peter Harris can lay his hand on £1.797 billion, though Michael Tabor (one of Coolmore's lads) has only £800 million in the bank. though more than our King who must look after the pennies as he has only a fortune of £680 million, hardly enough to keep Sandringham warm in winter, let alone Buckingham Palace and Balmoral. May their God bless each and every one of them.
It is expected that the Gambling Commission will be given permission by its board members on Thursday to implement its desire to plunge the knife into the finances of British racing, whilst herding those addicted to gambling toward the black market, with its finanacial risk assessment policy. In his column today in the Racing Post, Lee Mottershead, with his usual graceful style and economy of words, makes clear all that is wrong-headed about these affordabilty checks, whilst offering no real hope that at the eleventh-hour the Gambling Commission will see sense and add yet another u-turn to the long list already provided by the Labour Government since it came to power.
The overall theme of this government can be encapsulated by the phrase 'it's not us, it's them.' A theme that a man called Adolf in olden times used to get his people on-side with his secret and repulsive policies, even though at every podium during his rallying cries, his army was advancing on Czechoslovakia, Poland or Belgium.
While I am on the subject of extreme politics, I must add this. Anyone who works in the British horseracing industry who intends to vote for the Green Party in the future must realise they will be betraying the sport and putting their jobs on the line. Zach Polansky is as mad as a box of frogs and as opportunist as a snake in the grass, with policies that includes banning our sport and putting at risk the lives of every racehorse in this country. That our sport contributes large amounts of revenue to the Exchequer means nothing to him; he may not even realise that our sport is aligned to taxation. He certainly would not be able to answer the simple question 'how much money flows into government coffers from the horseracing industry'.
Money, money, money, it's a rich man's world, so sang people who at the height of their fame had more money than the Swedish government had at its disposal. The world of money and politics should not be a topic for anyone who either has a great love of the sport or who works within the industry. But it seems that government now wants a finger in every sector of society. It is Orwellian in its concept, a fiction that has become reality.