Racehorse owners are out of touch with reality if they think they should be exempt from affordability checks

THERE are times when this great, but sometimes infuriating, game is totally out of touch with reality.

Like at the horse sales, when oil barons and billionaire businessmen throw their money around without a second thought, like they’re on the big shop at Tesco.

Times Newspapers LtdOwners spend millions at places like Tattersalls… and they want to be exempt from affordability checks[/caption]

Except it’s not bread and milk they’re popping in the trolley but fillies by Frankel and sons of Sea The Stars.

Unfortunately in this sport, there can be a lot of sneering from the ‘elite’, especially if you didn’t go to private school and grow up on a 1000-acre estate.

I’ve felt it at times, the look that says ‘you don’t belong here’, and I’m sure some of you have felt it at some point, too.

So it was hardly the shock of the century when a press release dropped from the Racehorse Owners Association this week which said owners should be exempt from gambling affordability checks.

There have been some bad takes in racing over the years and this one is right up there.

Because you’re wealthy enough to own racehorses, you deserve special treatment and shouldn’t go through the same intrusive checks as normal punters, have I got that right?

ROA chief Charlie Liverton said: “It is hard to imagine that owners are the people the Government and Gambling Commission have in mind with affordability checks, so we therefore propose a common sense exemption.”

When I read that, I see: “But of course, they don’t mean ‘us’, it’s the peasants that they are really after.”

The rich and powerful like nothing more than to punch down on everyone else, keeping us in our place, and this ‘proposal’ is so elitist its entire family went to Eton.

We already know the upper classes think they’re better than the rest of us, but you don’t have to be so bold as to put it in writing and openly shout about it.

If you look back through the history of racing, no issues have ever been resolved when our different factions have started to splinter off and pursue their own cause.

The Gambling Commission and their proposed changes pose a direct threat to the future of racing – if affordability checks are rolled out in their current form we’ll be up poo creek.

We need everyone to stick together – only then will we get our message across.

But the ROA have in fact raised an interesting topic – a subject I have written about in the past.

They said: “It is bizarre an owner can spend tens of thousands buying a racehorse and tens of thousands on training fees, without affordability checks, and then face potentially intrusive checks betting on their horse.”

Good point – why aren’t owners subjected to more financial scrutiny?

There isn’t a yard in the land that hasn’t been burned by rogue owners who have disappeared when it’s time to pay the bills.

And then there are people like Kuwaiti businessman Saleh Al Homaizi, who went on a £20 million spending spree but vanished into thin air when he was chased for the dough.

Yet Joe Bloggs has to share his credit card statement, gas bill and inside leg measurement if he has the audacity to back a few winners.

The owners’ body is out of touch… racing needs everyone to unite before we are out of time.

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Establishes time and monetary limits before playingOnly gambles with money they can afford to loseNever chases their lossesDoesn’t gamble if they’re upset, angry or depressedGamcare – www.gamcare.org.ukGamble Aware – www.begambleaware.org