One Strike And You're Out - Horse Racing Stomping On Aspiration.

Racing is going on strike for a day and quite right too, at least they are doing something, but it's the punters that need a fair crack as well as racing and its tax break. The #BettingPeople interviews that I have conducted prove, to me at least, that it's betting that people enjoy most about horseracing, professional punters are the most popular interviewees by far. People may wonder why Ben Keith has financed the series when many of the interviews feature people telling us how to bet better. The answer is simple really, it's aspiration.

There's an old interview with Barney Curley where he says you can't win gambling, when asked how he can say that when he's surrounded by the riches (Terry Ramsden's old house) won from betting. He explained that when he was younger there was a footballer named Georgie Best who had an exceptional talent, he put himself in the same category when it came to backing winners. Of course, this was Barney Curley, he was right, but just because very few if any young boys would ever have the talent to emulate Georgie Best, it didn't stop thousands of them up and down the land kicking a football in the hope that they could. 

It's the same with professional punters, when people who bet on horses can watch interviews with the likes of Patrick Veitch, Mark Holder, Johnnie Dineen, Dean Valentine, Andy Gibson and the rest, they know it's possible. If they can up their game, they can win, if they work hard enough and have the talent to decipher the information available to everyone the way the winners do. Although the pro-punters are the Georgie Bests of the punting world, it's still possible to become one of their number, just as it's possible for a young lad kicking a football for the first time today to end up playing for Manchester United one day. Imagine telling that young lad that if he showed some talent they'd be banned from playing?

The spectre of affordability checks appearing to squeeze the life out of that aspiration is a much bigger danger to races finances than tax. Combined with short-sighted bookmakers restricting any punter that shows a glimmer of ability it's the deadly duo. People need to be able to dream that'll this year will be the year that they beat the bookies be that by grinding out a disciplined profit after years of doing their dough in a long and costly apprenticeship.

Aspiration is the biggest asset horseracing has, from owners seeing an £18,000 horse winning a handicap at York, syndicates landing a group race, a 100/1 shot winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup, all those things keep the dream alive, to punters working hard to join the ranks of the betting elite. Imagine being told that you could only own a horse and race it on the proviso that it didn't win and if it did they'd be banned from owning anything fast enough to win a race.

That sounds ridiculous doesn't it but it's exactly what bookmakers are saying to punters and those punters are the ones paying the tax that racing is striking over. Being told that no matter how good you get, you'll never be allowed to win, how many people will retain any interest in horse racing? We know that most people will lose over time anyway, but if you snuff out the dream they'll just stop trying and take their ball with them never to return. 

Simon Nott

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