I’m thinking about putting a few quid on The Grand National. Not that I’ll put it on myself, because I haven’t got the faintest idea how to bet on a horse, a dog, a pigeon or a hedgehog, but rather what I’ll do is decide on a horse based on absolutely no evidence that they’re able to piss straight, let alone run in the right direction and then ask someone else to place the bet for me instead; someone, obviously, who does know how to place a bet. As far as I understand it you don’t need to go to a betting shop to place a bet these days. Instead you can use something called the internet to ‘go online’ and through this you can pour as much money as you’d like into the fat pockets of the 365 lot or Paddy Power or whoever else, and then you can weep in shame that you’ve just squandered your daughter’s wedding fund on a horse that would have come last if only it hadn’t had a heart attack on the second furlong (note: a furlong is a measure of distance used in horse racing, but I haven’t the foggiest idea how far it is or how many of them make up a race – I am also aware that different races are run over different distances but again, when it comes to specifics I literally couldn’t be any less in the dark than I was when I woke up at 3 o’clock this morning).
I think I’ve only ever stepped foot in a betting shop twice. Betting shops used to smell of hope, failure, desperation and nicotine but now they just smell of hope, failure, desperation and old age. Old people still go to betting shops because they harbour more trust that a horse they’ve never met will scoop them a bit of cash than they have in committing their cash to a digital world. Everyone else prefers to piss their wages up the wall online now, and it hasn’t gone well. Gambling was always a dangerous little game, but in the 21st century is has become just another crippling addiction; an addiction that is hard to understand unless you’re actually addicted to it yourself (which goes for all addictions, I suppose). There are countless sad stories of credit card debt and broken marriages and bankruptcy and suicides that can all be traced back to a first cheeky flutter, and a lot of those flutters may well have started on the gee-gees. I’ve got enough problems of my own so I’m not in any position to preach on the bad sense in gambling, but what I can say is that like anything that has the potential to suck you in and then bleed you dry it probably feels like a bit of fun to start with. Funny how a little fun can end up in tears.
Anyway, that’s the bit about gambling covered. You’re welcome, and I hope you’ve learned your lesson. I’d like to say I thought long and hard about which horses to bet on this afternoon but that would be a considerable lie. In truth I just looked at the nice stripy colours and I looked at the names and I looked at the odds and then I closed my eyes and stuck a pin in the paper and that was pretty much that. Apparently there are dozens of different things you need to consider when working out whether a horse can run worth-a-shit and only when you have mastered all these subtle nuances and considerations can you be called an expert. For a start you need to consider the age and experience of the horse. Then you need to look at their form and whether they have been having a good season (I neither know nor care when the horse racing season starts or ends but I’m assuming they must have a few weeks off a year – if I took over the arrangements for horse racing the off season would last 52 weeks a year and all the lovely horsies would be released into a field to enjoy their lives, rather than being whipped shitless every other day and given a stupid name). Then you need to look to see which diminutive, characterless jockey will be riding (aka whipping shitless) the horse and you need to look at the conditions of the course and the weather and the price of eggs and the long term ramifications of the the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and what’s on Channel 5 tonight and recent inflation-linked interest rate changes and all the possible reasons for the funny smell that’s been coming from your next door neighbours for the last few days. Take all that on board and then look at how much you might win if you pass over your last, crumpled ten bob note and you, my fine friend, could be onto a winner, no word of a lie. Though the odds are always that you probably won’t.
Very few people make a huge amount on gambling in the long term. Some people can flutter and stop and some get dragged down to the bottom of the pit. If horse racing was such an easy bet and if every sure-fire winner turned out to win then they would be financial chaos. You could weigh it all up and find yourself betting on the best, strongest, fastest, prettiest horse with the most ridiculous name, like Achille’s Last Testicle (which, incidentally, wouldn’t qualify as a legitimate name (even though it’s really rather good) because for reasons best not delved into too deeply you can only use 18 characters – you are also denied the use of the words “filly”, “colt”, “stud”, “mare”, “stallion” or any similar horse-related terms for fear that some lunatic might think you were referring to a different kind of horse, such as the horse winds or a horse chestnut) and the poor bugger could break their ankle on the first jump, send their jockey through the back window of a Range Rover and then get trampled by two dozen other horses that will then be shitting themselves waiting to see if they’re next. In short, it’s all about luck, and when it comes to horse racing most of the luck seems to be bad, which is why a lot of people lose a lot of money to it and a few people make an absolute fortune. I’ve placed my bets. They’re already bound to either gallop to triumph and come equal first or there will be some terrible accident and the next time I see them it will be when I open a new bottle of superglue. Still, you’ve got to make your own luck in this business so I have taken the precaution of keeping my fingers crossed. Surely that ought to do it?
G B Burton. 13.04.2024
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 