Racing is not all about the punt

A WEEK ago, Four Corners examined how bookmakers were corrupting sport of its innocence.

Rangirangdoo

A WEEK ago, Four Corners examined how bookmakers were corrupting sport of its innocence.

How a joyous day out for dad and the kids, with the team scarfs and the thermos, was soiled by endless assaults of odds and enticements.

Racing is not regarded with the same fear of corporate bookmaker corruption as footy.

Four Corners seemed to accept that a Tom Waterhouse assault was OK at the racetrack, while being grotesque at the football.

Gambling funds racing, but that doesn't make it the essence of racing. Those who care only about the punt corral racing into a very lonely corner.

Narrow racing only to betting and it becomes irrelevant to a mainstream that is arching passionately against figures such as Waterhouse - seen not as bookmakers but corrupters.

Racing, dead if detached from the rest of the world, still has a pulse, still has a heart.

Women are half the population and a glorious component of horse racing, yet few bet. They dress up, enjoy hanging out at the racetrack bars and lawns and have a gander at the beautiful horses.

A lot of blokes don't bet much at, or on, the races either. When they do, it's for fun, not profit. They work for that. They love the sights and smells of the racetrack, the history of it.

They love the strange hold a horse can have on a grown man, and not necessarily because it landed the quaddie.

Chris Waller has so many horses in work at Rosehill, they are housed in barns the size of aircraft hangars. They are grist for the punting mill.

Waller lost one of his swarm on Saturday, old Rangirangdoo. Rangi was special because he was Waller's first good horse. He even named his horse pool after him.

Waller can be an emotional and sniffling victor - and not because the mugs in the TABs have landed a bet. He was inconsolable after Rangi died.

Almost immediately after Rangi smashed two sesamoids at Doomben, a fan page appeared on Twitter and hundreds, including sad jockeys who had ridden him, offered tributes.

The reaction to Rangi's death proved that while the punt fuels horse racing's engines, other things fuel the interest.