Laurence Inman sees certain links ‘twixt the three.

Bank or horse box?

I’m quite ashamed to say this, but I know a banker.

I say ‘know’; he’s the son of an acquaintance.

And I say ‘banker’; he’s one of these chancers who deal in ‘futures’ or ‘equities’ on behalf of his ‘clients.’ He makes piles of money for them, which they don’t really need and which they haven’t really earned. He also makes piles of money for himself, which he, also, doesn’t really need. He has his own website, which he uses to blather on about his beliefs. He thinks because he works so hard he is entitled to all the rewards which such hard work brings: cars, flats, women. He measures ‘work’ by how much it benefits him, gradually getting richer in his gated-off world. He despises people who work for less money.

He has no notion whatsoever of belonging to a community. He seems to be totally ignorant of the fact that his ‘wealth’ is created not by him, but by slaves in various parts of the planet who are used by him and people like him. He, and those other people like him, have managed to dream up a complicated gambling game, the rules of which they keep a close secret. They sometimes disclose the rules of this game to their mates, people they knew at school, sons of their father’s mates. People like that.

He is the cause of all the trouble in the world: wars, poverty, alienation, misery and ignorance. He can never be brought properly to book because he has managed to slant the laws in his favour, just as he has stacked the deck of cards in the finance-casino towards the interest of the house, which always wins.

I always think of this poisonous, parasitical wretch and the filth he smears across the world at this time of year, when the Cheltenham Festival starts, because it is an exact paradigm of global capital-slavery and its tricks and lies. All horse-racing is like this: a carefully managed bit of theatre designed to separate idiots from their money.

Look at the arithmetic. There are thousands of horses racing each year. They have to be bought in the first place, fed, exercised, tended to and housed. Then they have to be transported to meetings. The race-courses! The price of keeping them going is astronomical. Then look at the possible ‘prize money’ available for most races. On most days it wouldn’t cover the cost of a week’s hay and one day’s wage for the shitter-out back at the stables, and God knows he/she is paid little enough.

Now, I’m not for a moment suggesting that jockeys, trainers and owners come to an arrangement months before the ‘race’. Nor am I in any way offering the smallest hint that a tiny number of people are getting insanely rich by exploiting the weakness and folly of the sad bastards you see shuffling about in betting shops up and down the country.

I’m just saying, is all.