Two weeks ago I was in Quebec lecturing on, among other things, politicians and drink. The best moment in my research was encountering a Canadian blogger who declared, ‘We’ve had more abstainers than drunks in our Prime Minister’s office. The country has been reasonably well run, but Jeez, it’s been dull.’
It certainly hasn’t been a dull fortnight in racing as controversy has raged about the new rules on use of the whip. From Canadian waters, noting that jockeys such as Frankie Dettori and Tony McCoy had backed the reforms, I welcomed them too. I still back reform. Racing needs public approval and bigger crowds and the public response to whip use has to be heeded. But in the way they introduced the rules, and the punishments they decreed for those found contravening them, the British Horseracing Authority formed a circular firing squad.
The first Champions Day at Ascot, 15 October, was planned as Britain’s richest and most exciting day’s racing ever, featuring the wondrous Frankel. So it was, but because the BHA chose to introduce the rule changes that week sporting headlines were dominated for a fortnight not by Champions Day but by endless stories about jockeys being found in breach of the new whip regulations.
Ascot’s attempts to cement its position as a hub of international racing suffered a huge setback when the incredulous Christophe Soumillon, the Belgian who is one of Europe’s leading riders, lost his £50,000 share of the Champion Stakes prize money for giving his horse one smack more than the newly permitted five in the final furlong.
Dettori and McCoy, it turns out, had effectively been suckered into their public support. Richard Hughes, probably the best jockey in Britain, refused to ride again until the rules were changed and riders both on the Flat and over jumps were incensed both at the complexity of the new rules and the scale of the penalties. A jockeys’ strike was threatened.
It was a public relations disaster. Jockeys involved in frantic finishes found it impossible, in many cases, to count whether they had used their stick the permitted five times or an extra one, which brought automatic and condign punishment. What they had done in most cases was to infringe a technicality: what the public absorbed from the headlines was that large numbers of jockeys were daily being found guilty of cruelty to their mounts.
In its eagerness to demonstrate the smack of firm government, the HRA has inflicted severe damage on the sport it is supposed to succour and protect. It is trying to change the behaviour of professionals who in many cases have been riding under one system for 20 years, and who are criticised and penalised if they don’t go all out to win.
The sensible way of proceeding would have been to announce the new rules but run a trial period with no penalties for the first two months. Jockeys who transgressed could have been called in and cautioned each time, and warned of the penalties that they would have suffered if the new laws had come into force while they adapted.
There were other concerns. Taking away a jockey’s riding fee as well as his or her share of the prize after a whip transgression was unfair, especially for those at the bottom end whose fee may largely be swallowed up anyway by travel costs.
Not surprisingly the BHA has been forced to backtrack, while huffing and puffing that it is for regulators, not participants to regulate and that ‘ regulation is not a negotiation’. Overall limits on the number of whip strokes remain, rightly. But the unworkable specific limits in the last furlong, or after the last obstacle, have now been removed and penalties scaled down. M. Soumillon keeps his cash.
Slowly we are edging towards a workable reform. I haven’t met any jockey or trainer who opposes reform in principle. But plenty of problems remain to be addressed. What can you do with lazy horses? Will international jockeys such as Soumillon continue to race in Britain given the risks of suspensions that apply at home too? What about riders like Ruby Walsh who ride regularly both in Britain and Ireland? After an Aintree race earned him a five-day ban from the saddle for exceeding the prescribed number of strikes he declared, ‘I don’t want to be coming over here and getting bans in small races and missing big rides for Willie Mullins back home.’ Is it realistic to restrict riders to virtually the same number of strokes in a five-furlong sprint and a three-mile steeplechase? What about the safety issue when a rider who has used his ‘strike allowance’ finds his mount veering across the track endangering others?
As I write, incensed riders are still threatening strike action until there are further revisions to the reforms. I hope they don’t push their luck. Racing has suffered enough damage already. All we need now to turn a disaster into a débâcle are tabloid headlines declaring ‘Jockeys strike for the right to thrash their horses harder’, which is how it would be presented.
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