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Letter of the Week

Let riders ride

The newly introduced padded whips have been designed to eliminate pain and to that end they are effective. To draw a comparison, I am told that hitting a 500kg-plus animal with these new whips is the equivalent of a light smack on the bum with an open hand to a human. It makes a noise but there is no pain.

Give yourself a smack on the backside and that will give you an idea of what a horse feels when a jockey goes for the new padded whip. That being the case, it makes no difference how many times contact is made because it is not going to hurt, but it does serve as a reminder to keep the mind on the job.

There are too many grey areas with the policing of the new whip rules and two jockeys, Brad Rawiller and Dale Smith, were made examples of last week, each copping four-day suspensions and losing their riding fees and prizemoney percentages. Some may say rightly so for their breach of the complicated rules. Others, namely winning punters and connections, would say it’s ridiculous because they did what they had to do to get their mounts home.

It is unfair to the jockeys who ride within the restrictive parameters of the new rules when another rider is throwing everything at his or her horse and gets up in a tight finish, as happened at Cranbourne last Sunday.

The result was that the connections of one horse were celebrating, financially better off and patting their rider on the back whilst those connected with the runner up were left wondering what could have been had their rider been able to do everything possible to get his home.

This very point, in my opinion, challenges an old rule that all riders must give their mounts every possible opportunity to finish in the best possible position, or words to that effect.

Suspending or penalising a jockey for a breach of rules is of no benefit to punters and connections of losing horses. Then again, you can’t possibly expect the winning connections to lose a race on protest when the rider has not caused interference to another runner.

The only possible solution is not to restrict a rider from doing his job. A concession can be made by continuing to enforce penalties for riders who continue to raise their arms above their shoulders.

While most owners and trainers will never publicly admit it, they don’t care what tactics riders employ during a race as long as they get their charges home first.

A rider who gets suspended for a winning ride will always be remembered and re-employed by the connections, whilst a rider who does things by the book and comes up short as a result will probably lose the ride at the horse’s next start.

I know some of you out there will disagree, but I’m talking about the majority. It’s all about bucks in the bank and anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.

Punters’ confidence is crucial to this industry because if it is eroded and the investment dollars drop, then all areas of racing will be impacted. Punters want to see everything bar the kitchen sink thrown at their picks in a tight finish and to give them anything less would be irresponsible.

I believe the new whip rules should be reviewed and amended to satisfy everyone concerned. The past 24 months have seen a lot of angst amongst industry participants for a variety of reasons, so let’s look at ways of trying to ease the tension and fixing what we can. Those who are not directly involved in the industry but continue to voice their unproductive opinions should be ignored.

Peter Meilak
Altona (Vic)
Today's Racing
Friday 29 March
Saturday 30 March
Sunday 31 March