WHO NEEDS A WHIP, NO POINT IN USING A PACEMAKER & NO MORE ELITE.

Paul Mulrennen did not need a whip to win the King George Qatar Stakes at Goodwood yesterday. On playback, I thought he lost the whip at around the two-furlong pole, though I may be wrong about the exact place hand and whip became disassociated. He won nonetheless, that is the point

I have no problem with whips being carried. For health and safety purposes a whip is essential. By pulling it from one hand to the other a jockey can keep a horse running straight or prevent a collision with another horse or even the rails. My argument with the use of the whip is based on the three legs of the milking stool. 1) I believe we are being kinder to a horse when a whip is not used for encouragement than when it is used in earnest in a finish and it removes the justification of 'the horse comes first' when a horse is hit multiple times by an element of the sport that lies lower in the grand order of things. 2) The 'social licence' for our sport is not held by the sport but by the public, and I know from life-long experience that those outside of our sport have objections to the use of the whip. You can shout it from the rooftops that the pro-cush used by jockeys is as soft as a feather; you can slap the palms of your hands with the pro-cush as often and as hard as you can achieve to prove its ineffectiveness as a tool of pain, yet all that is proved is how ineffective it is for the purpose it is used for. 3) I believe that if jockeys were only allowed to strike a horse once, to get it to lengthen its stride, as Frankie Dettori was s brilliant at - I reference the way he rode Enable - and then have to use hands and heels and their voice, fewer horses would deviate off a true line, there would be fewer stewards inquiries - some might say the opposite - and fewer horses would thereby suffer back and tendon injuries.

It is infrequent that a jockey will lose their whip during a race and equally infrequently is it reason for them losing a race. Yesterday, American Affair came within 0.06 of breaking the 5-furlong course record held by Battaash. Mulrennen said after the race that he thought with his whip American Affair would have broken the record. What he is saying is that the whip would have allowed American Affair to run 0.07-seconds (or thereabouts) faster. What I am saying is if 0.07-seconds is the difference between a whip and no whip, what is the point of the whip?

Godolphin made a bollocks of the second race at Goodwood yesterday. On a racecourse famous for horses winning from the front, when their is recent evidence of pacemakers getting loose off the front, they choose to sit ten-lengths off their pacemaker, allowing their main market rival a clear advantage as he sat closest to the pace. Talk of New York was clearly the best horse in the race, yet not only did he finish second, he had a harder race than necessary. In athletics, where, I admit, pacemakers are used to set a pace to enable another athlete to break a world record, the record chaser does not get himself/herself in a position that disadvantages them. Buick did this, though you could not say he was in a position that prevented him from winning as he very nearly did win. I believe the best way to utilise a pacemaker is to sit a length behind so you do not have to quicken when pacemaker tires. In fact, I am coming round to the idea that pacemakers should be banned, even though I see nothing wrong in team tactics as long as no rules are broken.

The Elite Hurdle is no more. Jockey Club Estates may claim they simply have moved the race to Aintree but in effect they have killed the race off. The similar race will be called the Molyneax and will be staged for the first time on the day of the Becher Chase, which once again will have the Grand Sefton as a supporting race. The Jockey Club, obviously, own both racecourses, though Aintree is their favourite child, with most of their resources flowing in that direction. If life were fair, Jockey Club Estates would have offered Wincanton a replacement race. But life is not fair, is it?