October
AugustWhip madness
When are we going to stop kowtowing to Lawrence Pope and his do-gooder cronies? John Wheeler was right when he said we should never have let them in the door.
They have done the best to ruin Jumps racing and this latest whip rule is no doubt down to them. We have gone to padded whips — that should have been enough.
To expect jockeys to count to 20 over the last 200 metres is ridiculous. Do they stop at 19, say: "Is that 19 or 20?" and cost themselves the race? Then go to the stewards and say: "Sorry, I lost count, which is why I didn’t give it all reasonable chance of winning."
Brad Rawiller carried his horse over the line at Sale the other day, much to the punters’ delight, only to have his riding fee taken away.
What is the world coming to? It won’t be long before a few favourites start to go under due to lack of vigour, raising the ire of punters.
You Journalists need to get on the case here. And politicians such as Victorian Racing Minister Mr Hulls need to show a bit of leadership and step in before racing becomes a shambles — if their wives allow them.
You only have to look at last year’s Melbourne Cup as an example of vigorous riding from Blake Shinn winning the day on Viewed over Corey Brown, who sat on Bauer like a bag of wheat.
Arguably the second horse would have won with a bit more vigour, but if that happens this year Blake gets fined $300,000 — an unbelievable situation.
Roy Higgins would not have won his two Melbourne cups had he ridden under today’s rules.
Karasi, as good as he was, would not have won three Nakayama Grand Jumps if not for the hard riding of Brett Scott, who continually rode the ears off his Japanese counterparts.
It is a restraint of trade on Brett to force him to change his action as he would become less effective in a tight finish.
Then there is the reverse situation, of riders not giving their horse all reasonable chance to win through lack of vigour. This will lead to a lack of confidence throughout the industry.
Wake up, Australian Racing Board, before it’s too late and reverse this ludicrous whip rule.
The next thing for the do-gooders will be banning two-year-old racing. They have already tried to wipe Oakbank and Warrnambool, which would rob these communities well into the millions, so why not get rid of the Golden Slipper?
Is that the end result? But I suppose the big studs would step in to oppose it before it got off the ground.
Williamstown (Vic)