People will bet on contests they can SEE! Is an apposite axiom to ably illustrate the fun of the flutter. As our brand bookmakers pretend to miss the bleeding obvious; that access to images encourages the punt. I know they know this; their adverts adorn every set on our screens – so why deny such a flagrant fact?
  The current transmissions of scanty Sky Racing with its dozen odd courses thinly spread amid a million adverts, or Racing TV’s subscription schedule at £25 per mounting month are never supplying acceptable service to your suffering sportsman or woman. The illogical practice of billing customers for watching the races on which they bet has to be based entirely on GREED. Is a piggy penny-wise-pound-foolish policy. Like charging shoppers at the supermarket door – how long would a retail chain acting thusly survive as a business?
  A full-blown free-view UK channel that screens every horse race as it is run will benefit the bookmakers exponentially. They surely have access to survey stats of superior numbers of terrestrial viewers to prove beyond all doubt that exclusive cable and satellite broadcasts don’t draw the random player. The bookies should meet and draw up a plan that imposes a levy on their horse racing traffic to pay to set up and manage such a scheme. I believe this expense would be comfortably covered by the massive increase in turnover tide. Might take a year to balance the books, but I doubt it.
  Bookies are Tories, and like all elusive libertarians have a morbid aversion to submitting their dues: ‘I’m not sick, why should pay for their handout hospitals?’ Hear them whinge when a more exacting tax on racing is proposed, ‘…thousands of stable staff ending on the dole; countryside alliances breaking daily down; unregulated betting will be driven offshore or deep underground like bare-knuckle boxing, badger baiting and homosexual animal acts. We only make book by community indulgence as our cross to bear.’ They even have the nerve to denounce horse racing as a random residual revenue source; ‘We make more money from the FA Cup.’ Is a lowdown lie. Watch them squirm whenever racing is cancelled – yet not a petty peep when a football match is off.
  The racing elite are true horse traders; punk privateers; consummate crooks – to a man. I remember one day when a strike was called by stall-handling staff who resented the use of non-union labour. There was Mark Prescott goose-stepping grand in the bolden background with his brownshirt buddies – a completely pointless caustic CUNT.
  Then there’s the lot of the 200 talentless presenter pricks who’ll have to go out and get proper jobs when a single channel without any fluff comes to air. While their merchandising co-curators prissy persevere, furiously plugging any superficial stream of broker advertising, corporate hospitality, dandy days out; those bouncy castles, congo processions, charity relays, fashion parades, cover band crushes as homeopathic, low budget band-aids applied to a badly broken leg.
  Some neutrally appointed facilitator should develop and install a circuit scheme; Country or City – nothing too extreme. Rationalise the lagging logistics; travel, transportation, manpower, media. Promote the diversity of British tailored tracks; their contours, colour, lay of the land. Champion the charm of provincial meetings while targeting tourists and top-hole toffs with high end thoroughbred weekend whoopee.
  Horse racing is fantastic entertainment; historic, histrionic; codgered, capricious; poignant, passionate; with glamorous, dangerous ultra- highs and lows – only a fool would deny its appeal. The question is; do I want more racing with better access for my delectation, or less to benefit the greater good? The utilitarian dilemma set in spades: DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO.