we will never know, mark, till we give it a try.

​I am pretty fed-up with the prolonged debate, fuelled by self-interest and an inability on the part of others to come to terms with a society that is evolving at a faster rate than at any time in our history, that is the whip. In today’s Racing Post Mark Johnston, a man of great insight and common-sense and someone I only infrequently disagree with, came out fighting in support of the whip and, seemingly, though I’m not 100% certain, the rights of jockey to use it to their heart’s content as long as it gets one of his horses home in front.
Thankfully, I doubt if he reads this website on his weary way home from the races or knows my name. Strangely, though, when he was but a young vet, he came to diagnose a horse, perhaps the best young horse in East Anglia at the time, that was under my care. He had a good reputation even then. His diagnosis was spot on that day, though his analysis of the whip controversy is sadly awry.
He believes that there never was any need to restrict the use of the whip and that is where fundamentally the sport has misled itself. Usually his expertise and training as a vet allows him to spot flaws in the opinions of others and quite often makes a mockery of directives coming from the B.H.A. But on the issue of the whip he is barking up the wrong tree. As he rightly states, the horse has an in-bred flight response. But this is not why we can harness its ability to run and jump. Flight response is a recoil from danger, its only method to flee from predators. If Mark is right, and it is the instinct to flee from perceived danger that allows us to use the horse for our sport, we can only presume it runs and jumps through fear, and if that is true our sport is border-line cruel.
If I thought for one moment that Sprinter Sacre, Kauto Star, Frankel, Enable, Frodon, Tiger Roll etc, raced through fear and fear alone, and not because of the joy of the athlete, that it battled and strove to win in the final lung-busting yards of a race through a camaraderie with the jockey on its back, my love of this sport would diminish.
Mark, you scare a blackbird, or cat, dog, pony or virtually any animal smaller or weaker than a human, and that can include a horse, by clapping your hands. You do not have to beat it with a stick or throw a stone to scare it.
And he is wrong when he claims we will ultimately lose the sport of horse racing if we pander to the demands of the anti-whip lobby. We will ultimately lose our sport if we do not move with the times and display a little humility when dealing with this issue. The argument Mark and others use is doubtless the same as defenders of badger-baiting, hare-coursing and other forms of animal cruelty. Eventually, Mark, and sooner rather than later if Labour win the next General Election, parliament will toughen laws on the treatment of animals and we will be forced by parliamentary decree to stop whipping horses for monetary gain.
Instead of taking the ‘I am a vet, I know better than you’ stance, what Mark, a man of science, after-all, should be championing is a twelve-month study into whether the sport benefits from use of the whip or not. As I have long argued there should be a full season, both on the flat and over jumps, of hands and heels races for professional jockeys. I don’t mean every race should be hands and heels but a graduating increase as the season progresses, including every different category of race. This way not only are jockeys ‘broken in’ to race-riding without resulting to using the whip in a finish, but a clearer understanding of the boons and blessings of ‘non-hitting’ will be established. Some horses will be disadvantaged by jockeys riding with only hands and heels, as will some jockeys, but other horses, horses who presently are disadvantaged through a hatred of the whip, will benefit and improve.
Mark is also wrong to assume that the only people who oppose the whip are the ignorant non-racing public. Many racing enthusiasts would prefer not to see horses beaten with whips, however ineffective as instruments of punishment they may now be. In fact, I would argue that the sport may become more attractive to the ignorant non-racing public if the beating with whips was to be outlawed.
I also remain sceptical as to whether the B.H.A. is up to the task of making a decision on this issue as instead of already consulted with jockeys, trainers, owners and other stakeholders, they are presently ‘putting together an action plan’ rather than conducting a review, ‘looking at every aspect from technical considerations to industry attitudes’. They will be taking their findings to the welfare board in November. More delay. We could have a Labour government by November. Remember Labour have already stated that they want racing to work towards the impossible Nirvana of zero fatalities.
If the B.H.A. are presently looking at every aspect of the whip on what basis have they formulated all their previous rule changes? Guesswork and hope, I can only surmise.
Restrict jockeys to either one or zero strikes of the whip and the problem goes away, though we shall never know for certain unless we give it a studied trial first.