Over the past year, accounting standard setters have alluded to horses and races on several occasions to illustrate their points. Monday was no different when at FEI's annual conference on financial reporting FASB chairman Robert Herz compared the concurrent tasks of improving U.S. GAAP and converging American and international standards to straddling two running horses at the same time.

On the same stage, IASB chairman David Tweedie described the elimination of fair value accounting for financial instruments — especially during the credit crisis — as "a race to the bottom."

Later in the day, I saw an opportunity to use my own horse race imagery, this time having to do with the Treasury Department's $250 billion Capital Purchase Program. The CPP is the government's bailout scheme in which Treasury injects liquidity into financial institutions by buying non-voting preferred shares from qualified banks.

The deadline for signing up for the CPP program was Friday, so on Monday, the Treasury Department released what seems to be the final list of banks that will participate. (Restrictions apply, as we pointed out in this article, so hopefully the proper controls are in place to protect taxpayer funds.)

Not all the participants are large institutions, which leads me to believe that the smaller banks that applied for the government handout will restart their lending activities — once the stock purchase is settled — and in turn infuse small and mid-size business with much needed capital.

Which leads me to my observation about horse races. One of the community banks participating in the CPP is Wayne, N.J.-based Valley National Bancorp, which will sell $300 million worth of stock to the Treasury Department. Valley National has six ATM machines at the Meadowlands Racetrack — a prescient move considering horse racing's track record during times of economic stress.

According to history books, horse racing thrived during the Great Depression, as 15 states legalized the sport during that period bringing the total to 21 states. What's more, some say the nation's spirits were lifted during the Depression by watching the unlikely rise of a champion named Seabiscuit. So the odds are in Valley National's favor that it will see an increase in ATM fees — and hopefully lending fees as well.