Whip rules continue to hit jockeys where it hurts – the bans for minor breaches are too severe

THE current whip rules remain flawed in so many ways it’s hard to know where to start – but the punishments for minor transgressions remain of real concern.

This is a topic that will bore most – horse racing also faces much bigger issues than the whip right now – and get the classic ‘X’ reply of ‘all they have to do is ride within the rules’.

But it irks me.

Away from the mostly crass responses on social media, this remains an important topic, particularly for jockeys essentially doing nothing wrong, who don’t get many rides, but are being hit hard for just riding a racehorse so that it gives its best.

There appears no-one in charge at BHA at all right now, so as most of you know I’ve given up trying to debate the topic with anyone in power.

I’ve tried for a number of years and simply got nowhere.

It seems that BHA hierarchy are just too terrified to converse about the issue.

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Almost that they don’t believe their own rules. But that couldn’t be true, could it?

Let’s take Dougie Costello. He’s expecting to be handed a 12-day ban shortly with a mixture of punishments for a recent offence and deferred bans.

You would think Dougie had done something pretty horrific to a racehorse to get anything like that.

But that’s simply not the case.

Essentially, when looking at the last nine months or so, Dougie is expecting his latest issue to result in him being handed in the region of 43 days of bans for just six strokes over with the whip spread over a number of rides.

Dougie is a Ltd company. A freelance. The chances are not a single viewer of horse racing would know he had done anything wrong. So what’s the point?

And for those who say ‘all he has to do is ride within the rules’ I would counter with ‘but the rules make no sense’.

We are told the pro-cush whip is not a welfare issue. And no one would have noticed Dougie going over.

So if it doesn’t hurt the horse, and no one is commenting on the so-called offence what is the rule actually doing other than banning riders for allowing their horse to run as fast as they can?

Which is the point of the sport!

Another jockey in a similar position is Liam Keniry.

The latter rode Brian into third in the Sirenia Stakes at Kempton on September 7.

To the world watching on Keniry gave the horse every chance. But not to our law makers.

The stewards counted one slap down the neck as one stroke of Keniry’s allowed amount the so he ended up one over.

Tomorrow he starts an eight-day suspension.

Why? I’d love to tell you. But I have absolutely no idea.

All I do know is the horse involved was not affected in the slightest.

Indeed Brian was out having fun at Newbury in the Mill Reef over the weekend, some might say living the life of Brian. Funny old game.

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