Intro & Preface & Contents
Previous: XIII Books cont.
To-day’s newspaper contains a yard or so of reading about a spring horse-race. The sight of it fills me with loathing...
I remember, once, when I let fall a remark on the subject of horse-racing among friends chatting together, I was voted “morose.” Is it really morose to object the public gathering which their own promoters declare to be dangerous for all decent folk? Every one knows that horse-racing is carried on mainly for the delight and profit of fools, ruffians, and thieves. That intelligent men allow themselves to take part in the affair, and defend their conduct by declaring that their presence “maintains the character of a sport essentially noble,” merely shows that intelligence can easily enough divest itself of sense and decency.
Alpha.
Of Thorstein Veblen’s many interesting social insights, one of the most memorable is the similarity he noticed between the values of the upper class and of the underclass. Neither cares much for work and would much rather exploit the labor of others. And if this exploitation involves violence, all the better. The nobility are just thugs who have been successfully rapacious for generations. The leader of a criminal gang is just an aristocrat who has yet to obtain a pedigree and some land.
With that in mind, that horse racing is “essentially noble” and the “sport of kings” while also being the delight of thieves and ruffians makes perfect sense.
I see that Veblen’s master work The Theory of the Leisure Class, was published in 1899 so Gissing had a few years to have read it before he died.
Beta.
I went to the local horse racing track only once. Somewhere I had read that the secret to betting success was to bet on the jockey, not the horse. There was one outstanding jockey at this track so I bet on him. Had I has sufficient funds to continue betting on all his races, I would have done well; but I lost a couple times and gave up. What I most remember was walking down under the stands where the horses exited, through a sort of tunnel, to the track before each race. They were amazing animals. I’m pretty familiar with horses but these were like no horses I had ever ridden or seen. They looked like oiled/glossy coated bodybuilders... a look I prefer on a horse than on a person.
Years later that track was demolished to make way for a large residential-commercial development which is still slowly taking shape. This spring I took the train out there again and was walking along the tracks past where the grandstands had been. If I hadn’t know the place, I would never have guessed what had been there before.
I noted the opening in the fence where the trains once made a special stop on racing days. There is still a bit of a pit where that under-the-stands world was, where the jockeys and horses readied for the race before venturing out through that tunnel. An entire world, which had thrived (more or less) for generations now existed only in memory.
After they complete the development, and also the planned raising and improving of the railroad tracks, there will be not a trace of that world so many people experienced as a daily reality -- even the focus of their existence -- for so many years. Seabiscuit raced here and also at Tanforan, yet nothing remains of either facility but a plaque at a mall.
Next: Spring XV. The Hunting Life.
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