Trainer Sir Mark Prescott once noted that the greyhound races for the anticipated pleasure of sinking its teeth into a fluffy white bunny tail ahead. The human athlete races for the hope of fame and riches. But what’s in it, he asked, for the horse?
One thing that has been in it for the racehorse has been the coercion of the whip, the fear that if it doesn’t do its utmost a wallop or two will follow, the hope that if it does stick its head down and go all out that little demon on top will stop belting away.
It wasn’t a reasoning that worked particularly well for me at boarding school. The masters and matrons who wielded cane or slipper, in some cases with obvious relish, only made me stroppier. But racing folk have clung to the old theories. What used to be euphemistically termed the ‘persuader’ or the ‘attitude adjuster’ was defended as an essential. Some even claim the whipping of horses in races as part of some mystical, noble ritual.
This week, therefore, marks a new era, racing’s final acknowledgment that while the whip may be used for occasional correction it is no longer appropriate beyond a very clearly defined point for coercion. Under new British Horseracing Authority rules the number of times a jockey’s whip can be used during a race has been nearly halved to seven times on the Flat and eight times over jumps, with a maximum of five strikes in the last furlong or after the last obstacle. Jockeys breaking the rules will face automatic suspension. They will lose riding fees and prize money percentages, and it will be an offence for owners or trainers to encourage wrongdoing by recompensing riders for what they have lost.
Things came to a head after Ballabriggs’s victory in the Grand National. Jason Maguire, by no means a whip-happy jockey, was suspended for five days for hitting his mount 17 times although, under the old rules, he didn’t lose his £40,000 share of the prize money. Frankie Dettori’s thrilling Ascot victory on Rewilding over So You Think also came under scrutiny because he hit his mount 24 times, earning him a nine-day compulsory holiday.
It simply could not go on, the most eye-catching events in racing’s calendar constantly clouded by cruelty issues. Desperate for a greater share of the leisure dollar, the industry has accepted that.
Old-school jockeys used to insist that they could make horses go faster with use of the whip and true horsemen like Peter Scudamore, sensitive enough to determine how horses were responding, did just that. Too often, though, we also saw tired horses flogged home unnecessarily by clumsy riders in a way that demeaned the sport.
Talking to great riders like Dessie Hughes and Richard Dunwoody, as I did for my history of the Cheltenham Festival, I found they are now regretful about how the customs of the time allowed and even encouraged them to belt away at horses like Monksfield and Viking Spirit. Now with Dettori, jumps champion A.P. McCoy and champion trainer Paul Nicholls lining up in support of the new law’s clarity we have the chance to turn a page.
The key phrase Paul used was ‘the time has come’. Traditions have their attractions but if we never accepted the need to reflect the mood of a new age we would still have ponies down pits, children up chimneys and landowners helping themselves to rosy-cheeked peasant girls. The people we want to see thronging Britain’s racetracks don’t see the care and attention lavished on racehorses in stable yards by devoted staff: racing’s image is determined for them by what they observe at the business end of races on track.
But if the BHA has done well in setting such clear new limits it has done well, too, in refusing to be panicked into getting rid of the whip altogether. You can’t sit a horse on the naughty step or stop its pocket money: whips are needed to control wayward behaviour, to aid steering and balance and to prevent injury to the animal and others.
Some wanted horses disqualified from their victories where riders have committed whip offences. For me that is a step too far, punishing owners, trainers and punters for a rider’s misdemeanour, although racing might note that if the new regulations don’t work it may be all we have left to try.
Some riders are muttering. What, they ask, if you’ve used up your ‘hits allowance’ and a horse starts drifting dangerously across the course? Seamie Heffernan fears that owners will say, ‘You gave him five smacks and he just got beat, why didn’t you give him the other two?’ Johnny Murtagh grumbles that owners of lazy horses will be penalised and wonders how pleased punters will be to see him put down his stick when a horse is responding well to vigorous urging but a limit has been reached. The answer is: we’ll learn to live with it. This is a threatened sport and it doesn’t any longer live in a world of its own.
Robin Oakley’s The Cheltenham Festival: a centenary history is published by Aurum Press at £20.
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