There’s a lot of horse stuff in the countryside. Bridleways (which you are allowed to cycle on, yay!), fields with horses standing around, stables, horse vehicles, fields with those white racing fences around… and I never really thought much about it.
I also noticed areas with a lot of posh houses and a lot of horse stuff, I guess the horses bring in lots of money? My naïve assumption was that most of the horse infrastructure is for leisure purposes, but some random bloke I chatted to me told me it’s for the racing.
I wondered why that makes a lot of money, oh, gambling! (or “betting”, which sounds less unhealthy?). I did a quick internet search and found some lobbying stuff for supporting the horse industry, which spoke about generating lots of money through gambling. I guess that’s it.
I think betting on the horses is likely a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. As I got into a city I found what I guess is the other end of the chain to these posh houses. I didn’t include the people inside in my photo as that seemed rude, but they did not look happy.
