Is it time to dump the whip?

Jason Maguire was going to miss the ride on Peddlers Cross in the Champion Hurdle owing to a suspension for overuse of the whip, and marking a horse, at Doncaster. He got off the last day of that suspension on appeal. Now, a few weeks later, he wins the Grand National while once again breaking the whip rules.

I was in favour of leniency for Maguire and allowing him to ride at Cheltenham, but racing needs to better prevent its biggest races being won through abuse of the rules and having the sport brought into disrepute.

Disqualifying the horse as well as the jockey when a whip offence occurs would require the stewards to be very consistent in their implementation of the rules. Is it possible to create a set of rules that are both clear and rational enough to be applied fairly and without controversy, or would there be endless scope to annoy punters and aggrieve connections?

The answer to this question determines, I think, whether to continue with restricted use of the whip in races or to get rid of it.
 
Maguire's use of the whip on Saturday was just downright wrong - it was indefensible and magnified by the fact that the jockey obviously knew the state of his horse - why else jump off the minute he crossed the line ? .[/QUOTE said:
To be fair to Maguire the jockeys were all told to dismount after the line so the horses could be checked over and cooled down as necessary. I am not excusing his actions however.

I would not like to see the whip banned myself although I have no hands on experience with horses so am keeping my head down on this one a bit but Hamm's suggestion of disqualification strikes me as most likely to control it's use.
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Well, I hoped to kick off a good debate, and thank you all for doing so - it seems that it's a vexed question which anyone who goes racing thinks about. A lot of people dislike to see the whip up at all, while others will be yelling "smack him!". I think that a couple of smacks to see if you can get further effort, or if you know the horse is laughing at you, are okay. Not overhead smashes, either, just a couple of crisp slaps. If nothing happens, the horse isn't listening and you're wasting your time with another 10.

I would also like to see horses which have absolutely no hope of being placed not hit - there was a chase from Ireland a couple of days ago where the last horse was about 40 lengths off the winner, who'd passed the post and was already turning for the horsewalk. Did the plonker on board PU, ease down? No, he didn't. He was still whacking away at the poor beast to force it to jump the last. That, to my mind, is an abuse of the whip all right, if not animal abuse full stop.

Personally, I'd enact new rules where jockeys who'd abused their horses got a week's ban automatically (no totting up, just a week every time) and were fined £500. By the time they had accumulated a total of £3,000 in fines in their career, they were simply banned for life. By the time the 4th or 5th fine was staring them in the face, they might think again about whether they wanted to retrain as plumbers.

And a nice big welcome to NeilM - excellent first post and good to have you with us.
 
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Shadow Leader said:
Miesque : horses may be able to feel a fly landing on their skin but they have thick skin - people wrongly compare the thickness of our skin and how it would feel hitting us when using the argument about hurting them with whips. Have you seen a racing whip? Have you seen how padded they are now? I could show you mine if you like. In fact there's a big argument that schooling whips are far more barbaric than racing whips if used with any force; they can cut the skin if used severely. Eventing/showjumping whips have no padding on them so it can also be argued that three hard clouts from those is far worse than, say, half a dozen hits from a padded racing whip.
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I own a racing whip so won't need viewing thanks all the same! As to the thickness of skin - having disected bits of horse and witnessed several postmortems I guess we'll have to disagree on this one.
 
I gave myself an exploratory little tap with the latest racing whip (at Brighton last year) and can't say I was turned on by it - I know I've got thinner skin than an 'orse, but I still wouldn't fancy that striping me 17 times, thank you.
 
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Not many enjoy it the first time, Kriz, but I'm sure there are plenty of people in Brighton who could help you get used to it...
 
G-G said:
Yes Songsheet. Why should I or the trainer 'pay' for someone breaking the rules? If the rules are wrong there's no point moaning about jockeys getting away with 'it' , because they are not, and they do not make the rules.
In the instance given, why do you think I should pay if the horse 'only' was fifth because the jockey didn't do as we asked him to do? If he has used the whip excessively in that instance to make up 'his' mistake and the horse was still fifth, why should I be penalised for that?
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Because - and this is repeating an old argument which we had originally on here years ago with the ONE SO WONDERFUL York debacle - I believe it is inherently dishonest for owners and trainers to benefit from their jockey's cheating. Bringing instructions into it is an irrelevancy unless we start having every trainer/owners instructions pre-recorded! We all know that races throw up huge inconsistencies and you pay a jockey, after all, to be good enough to deal with those and ride the race to gain the best possible placing, no ?

I honestly don't see how you can defend winning a race by excessive use of the whip when placed horses effectively lose that race because their jockeys kept within the Rules of Racing!! Look at it a different way - would you, as an owner, be happy if a horse that tested positive for a banned substance was permitted to keep the race, beating yours, because his trainer in hot rush of blood to his head gave it something he shouldn't have but that's OK, his owner and jockey didn't know and shouldn't be expected to suffer the loss ?

Bringing disqualification into the equation will of course bring some ostensibly unfair losses at first but you'd very, very quickly find that all of a sudden, jockeys would be left in no doubt what would happen to their careers if their 'hot rushes of blood' weren't brought under control because money always talks.
 
Disqualification of the horse for a jockeys breach of the (inconsistently applied) whip rules is absolutely ludicrous and unimplementable. Jason Maguire gets vilified again for trying his absolute best to win - Ryan Moore does anything but and gets turned over and is hailed as the best jockey riding at the moment! I seriously wonder about the sanity of some on here!! We should be concentrating on the numerous "real cheaters" and more sinister operators who are consistently stopping horses.

Hamm you are either talking out of your pocket or your arse, possibly both!!
 
On The Bridle said:
Disqualification of the horse for a jockeys breach of the (inconsistently applied) whip rules is absolutely ludicrous and unimplementable. Jason Maguire gets vilified again for trying his absolute best to win - Ryan Moore does anything but and gets turned over and is hailed as the best jockey riding at the moment! I seriously wonder about the sanity of some on here!! We should be concentrating on the numerous "real cheaters" and more sinister operators who are consistently stopping horses.

Hamm you are either talking out of your pocket or your arse, possibly both!!
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Fabulously well constructed and reasoned argument, OTB, supported by such good use of the English language - you quite changed my views.

Not. Thankfully.
 
On The Bridle said:
Disqualification of the horse for a jockeys breach of the (inconsistently applied) whip rules is absolutely ludicrous and unimplementable. Jason Maguire gets vilified again for trying his absolute best to win - Ryan Moore does anything but and gets turned over and is hailed as the best jockey riding at the moment! I seriously wonder about the sanity of some on here!! We should be concentrating on the numerous "real cheaters" and more sinister operators who are consistently stopping horses.

Hamm you are either talking out of your pocket or your arse, possibly both!!
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The disqualification of a horse because the jockey broke the rules regarding use of the whip may or may not be ludicrous depending on your opinion but it is perfectly easily implemented. If they are inconsistently applied that is a separate question and it does not mean it is a bad rule. To say Maguire has been vilified is over the top I think.
 
I agree totally with G-G (!!!) on this one. Owners pay fortunes to keep their horses in training and it is patently unfair to penalise them - and the trainer and stable staff - by disqualifying a horse because a jockey breaks the rules. Jockeys tend to be a law unto themselves and it is more often than not that they completely disobey instructions - once they are legged up onto a horse's back, the whole 'team' ethic that has been mentioned on here flies out of the window; it is from then on in all about what the jockey does in the saddle. How can it be a team effort if the jockey patently disobeys riding instructions, for example? So it has to be the same if a jockey gets done for use of the whip, and, in my opinion, for stopping one. I've had terrible rides from jockeys; either brainless rides or a complete and total disregard for the instructions given - one jockey did the exact opposite of what I told him before the race, he couldn't have done more wrong if he tried! Needless to say he will ever ride for me again and had I gotten into trouble with the stewards over his ride I'd have happily served him up to the stewards on a platter and would have flipped if I'd been penalised for it.

What it all boils down to is that yet again there have been high profile fatalities in the sport so yet again the gutter press and extremist organisations have jumped on the bandwagon in a very public manner and yet again racing indulges in a serious bout of navel gazing.

Used correctly and within the rules the whip does no harm whatsoever to a horse and there is no question that its use be banned, especially from a safety point of view. I wouldn't have anyone get on a race-fit TB & gallop it without a stick for that very reason.
 
I accept your point Shadow Leader and I don't want to see the whip banned.

But if it is agreed that use of a whip can make a horse run faster or try harder and that over use of it, breaking the rules as they stand, gives an unfair advantage to a horse and it's connections over a horse ridden by a jockey sticking to the rules. The jockey takes the ban and the horse keeps the race.

That would seem unfair to me if I was an owner.
 
I really wouldn't want to penalise the owners, either, as Shadow says. Neither would I penalise the horse's form and career by taking the race off him/her. It's not the owner's fault or the horse's fault it gets carelessly caned. The only person responsible for the ride is the jockey - trainer's instructions, as we know, so often being ignored.

That's why I'd prefer to penalise the only person employing the whip, which is the jockey. They wouldn't give a four-X if the owner lost the race or the horse showed Dsq instead of 1 or 2 on its form. But they'd sharpen up soon enough once their own bank balance was negatively affected.

One other penalty would be for a serial offender to lose the use of a whip for six months. Say, get three whip bans (at any time in the career), and you can't use a whip for half a year. Then see how well you ride 'em home without one. It's too often used as a lazy replacement for legging a horse, imho, so I wouldn't mind that being part of an earlier punishment - perhaps not banned from making a living for a week, but not permitted to use a whip for the next six rides?
 
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But aren't you punishing owners of horses whose jockeys have stuck to the rules Krizon? It seems clear to me. At the moment you can break the rules, gain an advantage yet keep the spoils. Of course owners etc. of horses disqualified would fell they were not responsible but that is not the point. Their horse won having gained unfair advantage and was therefore disqualified.

What we have at the moment is a halfway house it seems to me. A winning jockey may be punished for over use of the whip but it is tacitly not accepted that that may have given him an advantage as he keeps the race.
 
Some of you keep saying it's unfair for owners and trainers to lose the race but no one has yet addressed the issue, as blodknok also points out above, of the unfairness to those horses behind a winner who got their because the whip rules were broken. Can someone address that, please?

It doesn't get past the very real issue of excessive use of the whip in the higher grade races where the value on the horse and the prize money increases by the win and jockeys know they will be financially compensated by connections for any loss of riding fees by suffering a ban.

You could try and adress the issue of serial offenders, true but if you, say, deem three offences means a total whip ban fro six months you are still maybe encouraging three cases of one horse possibly having an unfair advantage over the others. I agree it's not always the case - often the second and third placed horses have also gained their places via whip offences but if the Rules were clear to all jockeys. owners and trainers that disqualification would now be the result for flagrant disregard of the Whip Rule, then I am pretty damn sure all of a sudden, jockeys wouldn't be whip happy.

As long as it's used correctly, of course it's a proper aid and I wouldn't want particularly to see it banned - I just really, really think it's unfair in some of these big races to see horses winning over others which keep within the rules and jockey like Macguire who let the occasion go to his head just get a five day ban - he did the sport no favours whatsoever.

OTB - if you think I'm some bunny hugging good lifer, think again - those on here who have been to this farm know that everyday I deal with stock and they are commercial - not pets in a field somewhere. Bulls here are upwards of a tonne in weight and the cows/heifers not far behind them. You don't get them to do want you want sometimes by just asking them, so I probably better than most know when to get serious with physical force and when not to. Would I use a whip on my broodmares to do anything ? No, I bloody wouldn't - no need to use force of that kind when working on the ground with horses. Do I give them a slap every now and then when they are really pissing me about ? Hell yes, I do but it probably hurts me me than them...:lol:
 
Point accepted Songsheet - please excuse my previous childish outburst -
that type of behaviour is unacceptable and I am relieved you havent taken personal insult.

Jason Maguire is a good friend of a good friend and as I know him would never in any way intend to cause harm to any horse, human, animal etc.. He has worked extremely hard to achieve his position still probably only considered to be in the second or third tier and it annoys me to see someone who has strived so hard to better themselves to be routinely knocked by people who don't appreciate the work he has put in.

I detest as much as anyone to see a horse getting beaten up - especially so when it seems out of malice. I dont think Jason Maguire could ever be accused of this. I believe we need to let the Stewards decide whats improper and the bans arising from this have already had their significant impacts - Richard Hughes will confirm this. Whip bans are not a postive thing on any young jockeys' CV so there are huge deterents already in place. If these are correctly policed, we may already have the best solutions.
 
Bloodnok - yep, I don't think I fully thought that one through! Thanks for that reminder. I was concentrating so hard on giving the errant jockey the full punishment, I really had overlooked the horses and connections who were placing on merit and not breaking the rules. It's not always as black or white as it might sometimes appear. Have we all come to common ground, or is this likely to vex us for years to come?

I'm wondering what other countries' rules and regs are on the use of the whip? I assume they have them, but, as racing isn't standardised round the world, there might be less leeway in some places, and a lot more flexibility in others.

OTB: I don't think anyone's accusing Jason McG of being a sadist, but whether he's first tier or bottom of the list isn't the issue. He's probably a super guy, stands a round, good to know, etc. But we have to put all subjectivity aside in this particular case. I don't know, personally, of anyone who's knocked him, either - you don't win the Grand National on a very good horse by being a numpty in the saddle. There are jockeys who are regularly dissed on here and I'm sure people know them or know their cousins or their sisters, and think they're good guys. But you've got to look at the whip issue objectively, before the lunatics force their way and take over the asylum.
 
I pointed out that Jason Maguire had already enjoyed a reprieve from suspension in order to ride in the Champion Hurdle after marking a horse he rode to win at Doncaster last month. Given that the same jockey again falls foul of the whip rules a few weeks later, in the one race of the year routinely watched by the general public, leads me to believe stronger deterrents are needed.

The greater the potential incentive to break the rules the greater the penalty that is needed. Losing the race would provide that link automatically, because the bigger the race the bigger the temptation, but also the bigger the loss if thrown out.

I happen to think Jason Maguire is a very good jockey, but that is irrelevant to my point, which is that the current system provides an incentive for jockeys to break the whip rules in the very races where we most want them not to.
 
So, a recap on the premise of not banning the whip:

Automatically lose the position (if winning or placing)... and, er... what about the many, many scenarios where the beaten-up horse isn't placed, but comes in a well-whacked 7th? Surely in that case, where there are no dismayed connections, the jockey should still get more than just a few days off riding?

There's been a bit too much concentration on this affecting just winners, and particularly winners of major, very publicised, races. What about the poor Class 5 handicapper who's probably had enough of working the AW year after year, ridden by an over-competitive oik who's whacked it 17 times during the course of the race? Or the also-rans in the Classics, who may well have been getting the bejaysus smacked out of them during the race? Don't they deserve to be noted along with over-belted winners?

That's why I would ban those jockeys from using their whips, full stop, for a significant period of time. If they can't be trusted to not batter their mounts, they shouldn't have the implement with which the belay them. That's a selective whip ban, based on its misuse. If a child keeps throwing its toys out of the pram, then the simple remedy is to remove the toys. When the brat learns to play nicely, it can have them back, no?
 
Songsheet said:
Some of you keep saying it's unfair for owners and trainers to lose the race but no one has yet addressed the issue, as blodknok also points out above, of the unfairness to those horses behind a winner who got their because the whip rules were broken. Can someone address that, please?

It doesn't get past the very real issue of excessive use of the whip in the higher grade races where the value on the horse and the prize money increases by the win and jockeys know they will be financially compensated by connections for any loss of riding fees by suffering a ban.

You could try and adress the issue of serial offenders, true but if you, say, deem three offences means a total whip ban fro six months you are still maybe encouraging three cases of one horse possibly having an unfair advantage over the others. I agree it's not always the case - often the second and third placed horses have also gained their places via whip offences but if the Rules were clear to all jockeys. owners and trainers that disqualification would now be the result for flagrant disregard of the Whip Rule, then I am pretty damn sure all of a sudden, jockeys wouldn't be whip happy.

As long as it's used correctly, of course it's a proper aid and I wouldn't want particularly to see it banned - I just really, really think it's unfair in some of these big races to see horses winning over others which keep within the rules and jockey like Macguire who let the occasion go to his head just get a five day ban - he did the sport no favours whatsoever.

OTB - if you think I'm some bunny hugging good lifer, think again - those on here who have been to this farm know that everyday I deal with stock and they are commercial - not pets in a field somewhere. Bulls here are upwards of a tonne in weight and the cows/heifers not far behind them. You don't get them to do want you want sometimes by just asking them, so I probably better than most know when to get serious with physical force and when not to. Would I use a whip on my broodmares to do anything ? No, I bloody wouldn't - no need to use force of that kind when working on the ground with horses. Do I give them a slap every now and then when they are really pissing me about ? Hell yes, I do but it probably hurts me me than them...:lol:
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Songsheet - who is riding the horse? Not me as an owner. Not my trainer. The jockey - no one else is reponsible for the horse once they leave the parade ring. You think its unfair that horses that come second may have come second because the jockey didn't break the rules? What kind of argument is that when the 'winning jockey' is punished for what he has done? Jockey - the owner or trainer hasn't done anything. I for one as an owner have specifically told jockeys not to be hard and pull up if they think my horse is in trouble and not go for any kind of place or finishing. If they then go out and beat the crap out of my horse, then I would never use them again and that part is down to me. If my horse was struggling and the jockey was hitting it excessively, that is down to the stewards, not anyone else.

Is it cheating to run a horse several times in handicaps when they are not in any way expected to be placed, but in order to bring their rating down to drop them into a handicap and score a big betting coup, or prize? Yes it is, and anyone involved in racing knows that goes on but is anything done about that apart from the odd non trier ruling? No. Are punters given their money back for these horses deliberately not trying to win? No.
If I had to pay a fine for a jockey's actions I couldn't keep my horse in training, and I probably wouldn't be the only owner out there who only has one horse. Think of the impact on syndicates if members starting having to pay jockey fines and horses were disqualified? Great advert for racing.

If I am a passenger in a car and the driver runs a red light and is fined, why should I pay it?
 
How about if a jockey is found guilty of breaking the rules regarding use of the whip then they lost their riding fee and/or their percentage fee of any winnings that the would otherwise receive for the particular race? Not sure if it would be entirely practical but at least that way owners and trainers wouldn't be unfairly penalised.
 
We aren't going to agree on this one, G-G but it's been a great discussion. I've made my position clear as I can - I tihnk it's winning by cheating and I don't believe you can or should believe that once the jockey gets on board your horse, you're absolved from anything that follows. Simple as.

I will, of course, now be gutted that next time FAREER looks like getting his head in front, Hills will break the whip rule with a vengeance... :lol:
 
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