The latest crock of crap coming out of the world of do gooders continues to surprise. This time they are attacking the sport of kings with an attempt to bring in new rules. Theses so called new rules would become effective from August 1st this year and are likely to include:

PADDED whips.
Padded Whips? Oxymoron of the year. Instead of calling the persuader a whip lets just call it by its new name a freaking pillow. Gee that will be helpful when trying to push the pace to win. Come on Niconero Go!! No, don’t fall asleep.

A LIMIT on the number of times a horse can be hit before the 200m mark.
I can see merit to this but think it should remain a little flexible. As the saying goes its no use flogging a dead horse and if the horse is clearly not going to win money or is not responding after a few strikes then put the whip way. If the horse needs a few extra ones to keep it straight or push the pace then that’s fine with me.

I will tell you this, if a horse I have backed wins and is then disqualified for to many whip strikes the stewards better go into hiding! I would tear down the building looking for them!

A BAN on jockeys hitting a horse in consecutive strides over the final 200m
Ridiculous and absolutely should not be considered, let alone adopted. If this becomes a rule I may bring a whip to the track to use on racing administrators.

MAKING it illegal to whip horses that cannot feature in the prize money.
I think to make this illegal is a difficult position to put the jockeys in. You are asking a jockey to make a judgment call on a horses ability to make up some ground at the end of a race that could earn the owners prize money. Who is going to judge the point at which it CANNOT feature in prize money. If two horses are in a battle for 6th but both are well back from the 5th place horse (last prize money paying position) and the 5th horse pulls out injured or falls would it still have been illegal to whip the horses battling for 6th who suddenly end up in a battle for the money?

Overall these rules are stupid. If they are adopted I will have lost even more respect for racing industry leaders.

Ignore me at your peril racing industry!