Tom Waterhouse has driven me to this.


The scion of the Waterhouse racing family appearing far too often on my television to declare that while he possessed no actual talent he would happily part me with my money was – as they say – the last straw.

Watching the Wallabies get smashed by the Kiwis in the World Cup was hard enough without watching Waterhouse continually pop up on my screen asking for cash like some transient beggar.

Fascinating also that while he had mum Gai on the ad, dad Robbie was nowhere to be seen. Why would that be?

So this year, for the first time since I was about 10 years old, I will not be betting on the Melbourne Cup. In the era of the mass protest, this is my micro protest. I feel confident the TAB will survive without my $50 contribution but nonetheless it will make me feel a little better.

It pains me to take this step. By no means am I a punter. In fact horse racing bores me rigid, but the Melbourne Cup is something else again.

There is something about it that is quintessentially Australian. It involves a long lunch, quite a few beers and cheering like mad for some dumb animal. It’s a day that brings the country together for a common purpose, even if it is to get pissed and bunk off from work.

My first memory of the Cup was as a recently arrived 10 year-old immigrant from Scotland. There I was sitting in my classroom when the teacher stopped everything and switched on the radio and we all listened to the Cup. I was completely flummoxed but hooked.

But this year I must withdraw myself from the field.

It feels like we are standing in a deluge of betting with no umbrella. It is forced down our throats, forced up our bums and any other orifice you care to contemplate. It feels like time to take a stand, no matter how futile.

Betting ads have infiltrated our football games, our cricket games. Rugby league appears to be more interested in betting than sport. Then we have sports betting websites, the TAB, Sportsbet, Centrebet, Betfair. Enough already.

Then there is Clubs Australia and its campaign against pokie laws. Here’s a tip. Anybody that uses the term “It’s un-Australian” has no moral or intellectual argument of any note. It’s a term popular with the truly stupid.

Part of this rant is provoked by a concern that betting on sport is likely to corrupt the sport in some fashion. Betting scandals in horse racing have always been part of the scene. Now they have spread to AFL, league and cricket. Match fixing in soccer cannot be ruled out as well.

But most of it stems from just being increasingly sick of being implored by various types to part with my hard earned while just trying to watch a decent game of footy.

Perhaps I am just a prude. Perhaps I am a boring fart, maybe even a wowser. So be it. This year I will watch the Cup as always. But only as a disinterested spectator. It will be an unusual experience.

Maybe next year I won’t be quite so grumpy. Hopefully Waterhouse will have gone out of business and I can have another punt.

17 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • jimbo says:

      06:56am | 01/11/11

      Un-Australian

    • Blind Freddie says:

      07:15am | 01/11/11

      If it’s un- Australian to not support a ‘sport’ that uses horses like the Colonel uses chickens, then bring it on!

    • CJ says:

      09:58am | 01/11/11

      Un-Imaginative

    • Sharon says:

      07:25am | 01/11/11

      I too once considered this once a year dress up, drink up, cough up, hook up, throw up extravaganza was a bit of harmless “fun”, and I know people in the racing industry. Until I opened my eyes and conscience to the cruel realities of it all.

      The overbreeding,
      The whipping,
      The stress on young bones,
      The regular confinement in small stalls
      The gastric ulcers,
      The Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Haemorrhage

      And when the profitability wanes
      for thousands every year
      the end is a brutal
      slaughterhouse death.

    • iansand says:

      08:21am | 01/11/11

      Those things are terrible, but forget the young gels at Flemington - what about the poor horses? smile

    • Renu says:

      12:01pm | 02/11/11

      Well said Sharon. For the same reasons I haven’t bet this time. Have been doing for 20 years but no more.

    • Frank says:

      07:40am | 01/11/11

      It’s hilarious that ad basically he is saying,I don’t know anything but I’ll take your money and see what I can do with it.

    • Andrew says:

      09:17am | 01/11/11

      Have to say the ramp up on betting ads seems worse this year for some reason. Maybe i’m listening to the radio more.

      I don’t know anything about horse racing, why on earth would i throw away money betting on them?

    • stevenj says:

      02:24pm | 01/11/11

      agree, no interested in the donate money to rich game at all since I was in Junior school when i realize the principle behind gambling.

    • Dave says:

      09:20am | 01/11/11

      The funniest thing I find about all these betting agencies is that our sporting codes are more than happy to accept their sponsorship dollars yet take the moral high ground when one of their code bets on a game that may or may not involve their own team. Very hypocritical by our sporting codes. During TV braodcast we are bombarded by these ads for betting agencies with thier escape clause of “gamble responsibly” as if they care about the punter saving their own money rather than giving it to the betting agnecy

    • Anna C says:

      09:37am | 01/11/11

      Tom Waterhouse is a tool and should get himself a real job. Is there anyone in the Waterhouse family that does not live off gambling and horse racing? This family lives off the misfortune of others.

    • Ross says:

      10:54am | 01/11/11

      Spot on Anna, you are dead right.

    • Ross Whitby says:

      10:54am | 01/11/11

      Spot on Anna, you are dead right.

    • bella starkey says:

      01:06pm | 01/11/11

      That’s not true. The girl one lives off canapes and social pages exposure.

    • Anna C says:

      01:16pm | 01/11/11

      Yes bella starkey, you are right. I can’t open up the social pages without seeing her bloody mug everywhere.

    • AFR says:

      01:43pm | 01/11/11

      I’m surprised Waterhouse even wants to use his family name. Maybe his ads should say something along the lines of “I have the experience of two previous generations of crooks and race-fixers”

    • Natural Family says:

      06:01pm | 01/11/11

      I totally agree.  Also, it is so good to see the word ‘disinterested’ used properly, instead of as a synonym for uninterested.

 

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