Expensive research projects don’t always produce the results anticipated by those who commission them. Take the cosmetics company which launched a study into what perfume drove men wild and came back with the simple answer: bacon. It made me think of the millions of dollars America’s aeronautics industry spent on perfecting a ballpoint pen that would write upside-down in space. Meanwhile, the Soviet astronauts made their notes at any angle in pencil.
I wasn’t surprised, though, to hear that recent medical research had revealed that horseracing — apart from being the most sociable sport of them all — is more exciting than football and rugby. So confident of the findings were the Kempton authorities on Racing Post Chase Day last Saturday that they allowed racegoers to register to get their money back if a sample who took part in an experiment failed to be aroused by the action.
Several hundred registered for the potential bonus but the sample whose heart rates were measured and whose excitement levels were recorded through skin conductors attached to racegoers’ fingers all proved to have been significantly stimulated by the experience.
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