Norherly writes, "...but when my friends who own horses ask me about it I feel some guilt."

A tear came to my eye too. Poor wretched souls having been thrown on the scrap heap of race-horse ownership.

Perhaps we could get one of the major election contenders to implement welfare reform for race-horse owners as a polictical manifesto. After all, who else will pay the race-horse owners bills (including petrol for the mercedes) if not damn fool punters.

The very last thing we want to do is empower punters with choice in searching for value in their wagering dollar. In fact I have a better idea - lets increase the TAB take to over 20% and eliminate every other betting alternative. That way we can all eat cake.