Luceat!

About a week ago, I read this article about some wrangling (no pun intended) between horse-racing officials in New South Wales and the planners of the upcoming World Youth Day gathering in Sydney.

Today, I saw this on the BBC’s site: “Equine flu hits Sydney racehorses”

The second article talks about the potentially devastating financial losses bookies, owners, etc. are facing. Then I recalled one of the comments made by a reader of the first article:

Perhaps racing officials, jockeys, trainers, owners should forget about their precious back pocket for once, and for three days, and get themselves to the WYD Papal Mass. Who knows, they may even obtain some much needed graces from Our Lord, which makes any money they may loose [sic] pale into insignificance.

Now, I’m not suggesting that those who profit from business at Randwick racetrack deserve to lose money (and I think it’s a bit too flippant to sit on the sidelines and tell a guy with an unstable financial situation to just “forget about money”). It is poignant to note, however, that the very thing they feared would result from irresponsible event planning happened unforeseeably by microbial agents.

(Of course, there could be a more sinister, Dan Brown-esque conspiracy of militant Catholic Aussies who have access to strains of equine flu… hmmm…. )