The New Whip Rules - a jockeys perspective?
Heard an interesting relay of tweets between a couple of jockeys yesterday - talking about the narrow handicap chase winner, Justabout - 'there's one that wont be winning from next week, had to win today.'
But I'm just beginning to wonder how much these new rules will affect the game & how many similar, 'need shove types' there are but anyway, jockey, David Crosse, he's not happy & put an interesting little blog together with a couple of videos of examples:
"As you all must know by now the amount of times we can hit horses in a race from next Monday has over halved with the penalties being five times tougher! We are now only allowed to smack a horse 8 times in total during a race (5 after the last jump) and if we go one over we get a 5 day ban and we lose our prize money and riding fee for that race, whereas before it would be a caution. Some change in rules! Now, although I can see why the BHA are doing this, I feel this is an extremely harsh penalty and jockeys are going to be the big losers with these new rules. We are the ones in this sport, going out risking our neck everyday (don’t forget it’s the only occupation where you are followed by an ambulance whilst at work) and now if you make one tiny mistake when you are trying your hardest to win a race for the owners and punters, it’ll end up costing you your livelihood.
Let me explain a bit about race riding. When you are in race and your blood is pumping and it’s all about you and your horse getting to the line first, sometimes it’s easy to lose count of how many times you’ve slapped your horse to get there. However, I, like most other jockeys, like to think I know the difference between getting the best out of a horse in a race and beating it too much. Whereas, I am not too sure if the BHA do. You’ve got to remember that we are professionals and we love our horses (that is why we do this job) and we would never want to see a horse being treated cruelly let alone do it to them ourselves!
My win on Snake Charmer last week at Fontwell, under the new rules would have meant that I would have got an 18 day ban. Watch my ride for yourself and see if you think my ride warrants a punishment of 18 days of not being able to work. Imagine if someone took away 18 days of your salary because you tried your best."
more & vids:
http://www.lovetheraces.com/voices-o...voice_tab=blog
