The long-running saga of the Levy, which has dogged racing for the last 24 months, is evidence that the sport continues to be placed in peril by warring factions.

Each party - owners, trainers, jockeys, bookmakers, the BHA and punters - has consistently failed to work together to help horseracing not just cement its position in the British consciousness, but move forward in the way that any successful business should.

Does anyone know how and by whom 'punters' are being represented in the  "long-running saga of the Levy"?

The BHA were offering a sort of punters forum to a selected bunch from the racing forum, but that seems to have gone west as well.

Racing really does hate its customers

Cheers zilzal. Haven't seen anything from whoever represents 'punters'. Like you say, probably gone West.

Sorry brigus, people who have lost the argument are laying siege to my house

But they're chasing a hare their side rscaughtboy. hth. [;)]

Should just be banned . Absolutely no need for it these days . Use it for corrective measures , but not for thrashing a horse

Actually,just try thrashing a horse in hell.Not a hope with all that heat and crowds of ex jocks,trainers and police officers from the met and merseyside.[:(][:(][;)]

Differentdrum - not saying a horse must be marked to feel pain. My point is that whipping a racehorse to the point where it sustains a visible weal or other scar/injury is unacceptable. And the development of the modern foam whip has as good as eliminated such injuries. This is of course a good thing.

As for the question of 'pain' that is difficult. The word 'pain' itself is pretty vague, encompassing a wide spectrum of sensation. Anything from a twinge to excruciating agony could come under the 'pain' heading.

I have no knowledge of animal or equine physiology apart from bits and pieces i've read in relation to horseracing. That excellent Nic Doggett article posted above mentioned the studies undertaken to investigate whether horses feel physical pain or mental distress caused by the whip during racing. These were inconclusive, i.e. there was no clear evidence that horses did, or did not, feel pain or distress during racing as a result of whip use.

But it seems to me that horses must feel some degree of pain during racing. Human athletes must go through the 'pain barrier' to achieve faster times. And horses must feel the whip when they are hit (jockeys say the sound of the whipcrack also has an effect on them, but obviously they feel the blow too). Intuition tells us that horses must feel a sensation that we would call pain.

I would argue that there is nothing wrong or immoral with horses feeling a degree of pain during racing, either through being hit with a (modern) whip, or just by operating at the limits of their physical capacities when racing.

In fact, i'd say you can't truly have Sport without a degree of pain or sacrifice being suffered by the participants, be they human or equine. Jockeys starve themselves to make weights and risk life and limb on the track, Daley Thompson trained on Xmas Day, rugby and NFL players endure endless bonecrunching tackles. The endurance of pain and refusal to submit to it in order to perform is rightly applauded in all sport and horses should not and can not be exempt. This is the essence of sport.

Of course we can't apply identical arguments to humans and animals as there is the question of free will vs coercion - human sportsmen know what they are letting themselves in for and compete of their own volition. But it is clearly wrong to say that thoroughbreds only race through coercion. These animals are built, bred, evolved, and exist to race fast. Today's racehorse descends from hundreds of generations of horses that were selected to breed on account of their ability, aptitude, and willingness to race. And to respond to the rider's urgings and instructions, which were always communicated in part via the whip. (Ask backers of the Hannon filly, Memory, whether horses can be forced to race).

It is unfair to say that horses who travel on the bridle and don't need the whip are 'genuine', whilst those who require stoking up with the whip are 'lazy' and 'ungenuine'. The whip is not necessarily for coercion, but communication; it is the rider's means of telling some horses when the time has come for serious work, to tell them when to race.

The current rule is a farce and I have much more sympathy with the argument that the whip should be completely banned than with a rule that says 7 hits good, 8 hits bad. But if we lose the whip from horseracing it is barely sport any more. Look at those godawful hands and heels races for amateur riders, with the weak pushing and slowmotion finishes. That ain't sport, it's a dress rehearsal, there's no sense that anything really matters. Sport has to be played as if it's life and death, without crossing the line into brutality, and we have to keep the whip, and ditch the hit quota.

Just to add.

The real issue is the severity of the punishments for the jockeys losing their wages for 2 weeks with the ludicrous bans.

Angel, Giggilo

Yeah in theory, in a short flat race, 7 cracks should be about ample for the majority of rides.

But day 1 of the new rule showed it to be unworkable in practice. The horse ridden by Kieren Fox was heavily punted and he happily saw fit to 'cheat' by giving it 11 smacks while the other jocks stuck to their limit. He was so far over the limit that it was clearly a conscious decision to flout the rule; he cannot have lost count. Thus he got an unfair advantage and even the 15-day ban he got was not enough of a deterrent to prevent him from totally ignoring the new rule.

We had a laughable situation where 10 jocks in a race were following one set of rules and the 11th was brazenly ignoring them, and yet the result had to be allowed to stand. And that situation is set to be repeated every time a horse is heavily punted by connections. "Don't worry jock, you hit it as many times as it takes to win, you will be fully compensated via brown envelope readies. Cheers". The jock may lose his riding fee and share of prize money (a paltry £165 in Fox's case) but it is impossible to prevent the profits of a successful gamble being shared with a jock in cash or gifts.

You simply cannot have the 7-hits rule without also disqualifying a horse for excessive hits, otherwise it's not a level playing field. Yet that is the (foreseeable) situation we find ourselves in since Monday. I despair

As James Willoughby said last week, horses don't come pre-programmed to race, some need to be persuaded and that is why the whip is essential

I think the biggest potential problem of the new rules / god forbid a total whip ban, is a detrimental effect to betting turnover. How many of us are turned off by hands-and-heels races? How many will be turned away from the sport when they see jockeys cannot get the most out of a horse (within reason)?

Perhaps the first step should have been to bring in the new harsher penalties with a stern warning to jockeys that they risk losing the whip all together if they don't comply.

Imo, the sport is being ruined as a spectacle if horses cannot be pushed (within reason) to their full capabilities (and I'm not talking about abusing horses - I think it is agreed there is no welfare issue so long as the whip is used correctly).

Also, persuading the horse with the whip at the end of a Flat race is not the same as persuading a horse out on its feet at the end of 3 mile chase in heavy ground. So perhaps allowances should be made for this?

g_10, wrt gambles being whipped more than other horses, nothing has changed except the excess of lashes will probably be less and the jockey is likely to get a longer ban. The connections may well slip him his share of the prize money in cash but I doubt they'll be getting enough on to compensate him for 15 days of missed rides. Of course, that won't apply where the jockey would miss few rides anyway or in the likes of races where the black type makes the difference between defeat and victory massive in terms of money.

The only way to ensure the gambled horse receives the same amount of whipping as the others is to ban the whip. The whip is a "cheats charter".

I think this whip rule is simply crazy.

Instead of the BHA trying to teach jockeys how to ride they should have sent all of the stewards to seminars to show them what is, and is not, acceptable. Then, when a jockey abuses a horse in a race he gets 5 days and no money. The jockeys can then get on with the job they are employed to do.

None of this ridiculous furore would have even happened.

Yes Feck! If you really are a horse lover get yourself off to Dover and lay in the road to prevent live horses being transported abroad for meat. Now that would be a 'real' cause to support.

Just for anybody who cares - and i doubt any do -  to suggest i have anything to do with the countryside alliance would be like me suggesting that feck was banging waitresses two at a time whilst eating a roast chicken wearing thigh length leather boots with his  german shepherd mounting the only gay in the villages pet poodle.

as usual the debate turns into puerile name calling

lol - now now feck,don't waive you hadbag at me,plastic or otherwise.

If having no whip was a cheats charter the cheats would've requested a long time ago (or do you all now believe Deano's "UK racing is the straightest racing in the world" statement ).

Don't suppose you'd like to respond to something to do with the subject we're debating, such as the point above?

I wasn't insinuating anything about my punting with that remark zeb. I was merely making a guess about yours. Anyway, I'll take that as a "no" to my question.

Feck, are you still banging on?

Look, the only way you can tell whether or not a horse is running to it's FULL potential is by using the whip. That is why there was such an uproar about the McKeown 'airshots'.

For that reason alone to ensure cheats don't prosper 'all' horses must be ridden on their merits. Something you will never know if whips are banned.
I know you may say whips are not used in Sweden but you cannot 'lay' horses in Sweden. Therefore the cheats cannot prosper the way they could in the UK if whips were banned. And I am sure that is the reason the BHA never banned it's use or even trialed it.