Last Saturday I faltered to subscribe
to Seagram's National with a gambler's guile.
What I thought sponsorship, in fact, was bribe
to send two score young beasts to mortal trial.


Half that number passed the winning post.
The other half were not for Aintree bred.
Among the latter, two paid out the most:
Roll-a-Joint and Hungry Hur are dead.


The Paddock speaks not of ghost-in-the-machine
glowing from the patient eye of every nag
and, at the winner's stand, some libertine
makes 'use of whip' or 'horsemanship' his brag.


What matter then if horse or cars be sped?
For tyre and trim, read simply hoof and hide.
The difference is machines are never dead -
Their broken parts will fit another ride.


If man's skill can harness lifeless forces
and steer machines where no bird dares to soar,
build me a million cybernetic horses
and sacrifice the living ones no more.


Or if technology has greater risks
to enterprise itself with for the while,
make me a mountain of clay-pigeon discs
and save as many grouse from such a pile.


What can one say for creatures killed in action?
For them there is no minute's silence stood.
Beasts muredered cold for sporting satisfaction
gain their rembrance but in offspring blood.


Here, where the precious, thirsty British ground
hows not its progeny the ruddy red of war
but sports its champions with horse and hound,
a fox might deem a dog worth dying for?


Here where the mild, domesticated rivers
long since have rinsed away the last bloodbath,
Poseidon, grateful for the peace, delivers
a fish as a trophy for an angler's hearth.


And British man's the weekend emperor:
the hobby king astride his hobby horse;
an Androcles to soothe the lion's paw?
Or a lion with creation in its claws?