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Letter of the Week

Whip around

 

The dreaded whip rule unfortunately is back in the news. Whips are padded yet this rule is still in place. Jockeys should consider industrial action as it is affecting their livelihoods.

Stewards are now getting away from their more pressing duties and becoming more interested in how many times a jockey is hitting a horse rather than other incidents in a race that they’re now missing where they once wouldn’t.

Case in point is the last at Rosehill on November 12.

Apprentice Blake Spriggs on Levi’s Choice clearly clenched his fist or patted the horse two strides before the line, only to be beaten in the last stride. He may not have seen Strike One get up on the rails, as they were wide apart, but he definitely did not ride his horse right to the line. This cost connections and punters money!

Stewards did question Blake about why he didn’t push his mount out in the last stride and he said that his mount was hanging in. That, I’m afraid, is clutching at straws.

J. Cassidy cops five weeks for trying his best and another rider gets nothing for not riding his mount right out. That’ll do me!

Finally, why have the rule if the placegetters cannot protest against a breach of it?

Rod Saunders
Padstow (NSW)
Today's Racing
Friday 29 March
Saturday 30 March
Sunday 31 March