What gets me is that the BHA, trainers, jockeys are not going out on the offensive and strongly refuting the spurious arguments put up by those who have an agenda. We are always concending, always defensive. Nobody would disagree with the point that animals should not be abused but this lobby will not stop until they have horseracing banned altogether.

TH,And if the same camera angle is shown as last year it wont matter about the whip at all if we get more deaths. Should we sacrifice the National iyo?? im more a flat fan but i could understand the Jumps guys getting a bit mad at it.

Its just along the lines of we are being judged by the General Public on a unique event once a year, if you base it on equine fatalities is not safer anyway, its just what the public have been told

In view of the publicity it gets now and if we are to be honest we all hold our breath because it will be several columns more on the front pages if its bad news is it worth sacrificing in order to keep NH racing going a bit longer, a pre emptive strike perhaps, even make it a Handicap hurdle.

I go even further in pessimism and think that NH racing could be gone within 15 years if things do go wrong

What a load of nambie pambies we have become.

We should ban boxing because men battering each other is barbaric, all that blood and guts. We should, of course, ban rugby,too, because it is is the cause of more broken necks and backs than any other sport. Then there's motor raciing (too fast) football (too many broken legs). Of course, all these sports just involve humans and not animals, so it's not the same, is it? There again, fishing involves killing fish. No fish industry then. And beef cattle or lambs. Rearing these for the knackers yard is definately inhumane. We should all beocme vegetarians, at once.

The racing authorities have made several big mistakes. The first is in accepting that using the whip, is in principle, a bad thing. Wrong move. Once admitted there is no end other than the banning of it eventually. Then the penalties. To have a system where one extra stroke incurs the heaviest penalty without any scale of penalty is ludicrous.And to compound that with doubling and trebling the punishment with each subsequent offence - well the mind boggles. They've taken 12 months to reach this policy, mind you. 12 MONTHS!! And to not even trial it and to introduce it the week of the biggest day in the Flat season. These so-called leaders are buffoons.

To have a system where one extra stroke incurs the heaviest penalty without any scale of penalty is ludicrous.


No it's worse than that, it's now ok to hit a horse 6 times in the last 221 yards, but not in the last 220!

Iloveliamslips

I wasn't intending to be snobbish about it, I don't go out of my way to watch it but I have watched it sometimes along with other junk tv programmes, they can be entertaining, it still doesn't alter that it's not really the way real talent breaks through and that most of it is crap.

It's a sad state of affairs when 7 day bans are dished out for 2 extra cracks, yet only 1 more day is considered appropriate for persevering on an exhausted horse (eventually leading to it being fatally injured), as happened today.

I agree, but I think it was actually the jockeys who wanted a specific number, so they knew exactly where they stood. It's this inside the final furlong nonsense which has made things unworkable. I don't think having an exact number (whatever that number may be) is ideal, as like you say there can be a big difference in effort going into those smacks and some horses may be responding. However, it does seem to be the most simple solution, any other rule leaves things at the discretion of the stewards, and frankly I'd rather it wasn't.

Keep hearing pundits and forumites talking aabout winning some public relations battle with the hug a horsey crowd. Ba**ocks. Is no battle, cant be won. Nothing to pathetic as people who should know better running around trying to apologize for something that needs no apologies.

It's like flogging a dead horse then, yank!

Yeah, let's pump 'em full of drugs as well like those expert American "horsemen".

I think you'll find I wasn't the one making the generalisations, that was you. My statement about American racing was based on a fact.

There's too much emotion involved in this issue and not enough reasoned debate.

The fact is, that we have had an association with horses for around 2000 years, maybe more, and in that time we have learned the best way to handle horses. Racehorses get the best of attention, they are bred to race. Most trainers and jockeys know that over-use of the whip is counter-productive because it sours the horse so when it is used it is used relatively sparely.

We have allowed non-horsemen and non-racing enthusiasts to command the moral heights on this relatively minor issue and it is time that the industry took a stance which was informative and firm, based on hundreds of years of racing thoroughbreds.

We have a hypocritical attitude on the whole towards animals of any kind including horses. If you've ever seen War Horse, you will know that millions were sent to their deaths along with millions of soldiers during WWI. In France they eat horsemeat. In this country we over-breed so that finding homes for ex-racehorses can only touch the surface of the problem. The issue of the whip is tiny compared to these bigger issues of past and present, which either were never addressed or are not currently being addressed.It seems that when it comes to animals, reason flies out of the window.

Where did I slag off American horsemen? I was simply refuting your quite ridiculous opinion that every other country in the world apart from England are "expert horsemen" and that poms should keep out of making decisions on their own sport. An extraordinary "example of smugness" if ever I saw one.

Your assertion about American horsemen pumping horses full of drugs oozes smugness, mate, and is a cheap slagging off of American horsemen. Sorry for you if you cant be honest with yourself about it.
You should read what I write better before you comment. I never asserted that horsemen in other countries were experts and English horsemen werent. Horsemen in England are equal to -- not better than -- those in France, Japan, US, Chile, etc. I merely implied that horsemen in other countries have no problem with whipping horses. In fact, I dont think most English horsemen have  a problem with it either. The problem, as I stated it, is that the BHA, pundits and fourmites think they can get somewhere by being apologetic to puppy huggers. Horsemen in other countries dont have that problem.

'Those' is a dodge. I dont judge English jockeys by McKeown or trainers by Howard Johnson. I have found it fairly common, however, over here that Dick Doctorw is taken as representative of American horsemen.
In context, I think my reading of your remark was correct, Figgis.

Yank, many American racing fans and experts have a problem with the drug situation over there, I am well aware of that. If you can point out where I slagged off all American horsemen that would be useful, but I'm sure you'll wnat to continue to interpret it how it suits you.

Oh, and yeah, Figgis, the final comment aabout me wanting to continue to interpret as it suits me -- that's another invidious and ad hominum remark that is simply unwarranted.

There you go again with 'so called' horsemen. Is Rubby Walsh -- opposes whip rule changes -- a so called horseman? Is Christophe Soumillion a 'socalled' horsemen? Ba**ocks.

I've already said, on this thread, that I don't agree with the new rules either. However, I also don't agree with the reactionary luddite response from the "Don't touch our sport you puppy/tree huggers" merchants.