No whipping; no jocks at Monmouth 2021

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

How many horses have died, been seriously injured etc from whipping over the last hundred years?

Is this a real problem?

It's mostly an image problem.

But I should note, this is not a new thing. Europe has had whip restrictions for decades. And American horse racing basically outlawed the spur, which was another traditional method for riders to control horses, in the 1950's, also for image reasons because it looked like animal abuse. If you watch very old films of races, you will see the riders swinging their legs back and forth during the race- that was them using the spurs on the horse.

The point is, at the end of the day, the public allows us to carry on this sport and to bet on it. Sports that are seen as abusive to animals sometimes get banned (bullfighting, cockfighting, dog racing, etc.). So the sport has to be responsive to public opinion and to its image, even if the actual impact is pretty minimal.

(And I might add, this problem is made worse by things like the breakdown rate and the sport's tolerance of doping. So there's already a lot of people who think the sport abuses animals, and the whipping just adds fuel to the fire.)

[PhantomOnTour]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

How many horses have died, been seriously injured etc from whipping over the last hundred years?

Is this a real problem?

Exactly...the whip never killed a horse.

This is purely an optics thing because people don't like seeing the pretty horse get whipped

[biggestal99]

Originally Posted by PhantomOnTour

Exactly...the whip never killed a horse.

This is purely an optics thing because people don't like seeing the pretty horse get whipped

There have been times however when the whip was misused against a horse. I have seen where the jock hit the horse in the face with it.

That’s not just bad optics but animal abuse.

Don’t get me started on Eddie maple, one of the worse for whipping a dead horse.

Allan

[woodtoo]

All fair if they are allowed to whip each other.

[Afleet]

but Servis and Navarro will be allowed to "train" there

[Afleet]

Originally Posted by biggestal99

There have been times however when the whip was misused against a horse. I have seen where the jock hit the horse in the face with it.

That’s not just bad optics but animal abuse.

Don’t get me started on Eddie maple, one of the worse for whipping a dead horse.

Allan

that's a name I havent heard in a long time

[SG4]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I wish the rules of this game would make a little more sense consistency-wise. The industry refuses to eliminate the run-ups, which have been needlessly confusing horseplayers for God knows how long...because timing the races from a standing start would result in slower running times, which would presumably reflect negatively on the "quality" of today's horses. The same argument keeps the weight of the jockeys at the extremely low levels that we see today. If the American jockeys weighed say, 130 pounds, the horses' running times would suffer...and this would presumably reflect negatively upon our sport. Won't the removal of the whip result in slower running times as well? And if the horses' running times are suddently rendered unimportant, which I happen to agree with...then, why not do away with the run-ups and the extremely low jockey body weights as well. That way, the horseplayer can be spared of some needless aggravation...and the jockeys can be spared of some of the vomiting that they must now endure.

If jockeys were told they could tote 130 lbs with no whip or 120 with a whip I wonder which way a majority would prefer. Maybe that could be the future appeasement by tracks, if you're a no-whip/reduced whip venue the weight scale could be significantly higher.

[biggestal99]

ADBC3A75-56A0-415D-8A08-6EF82AAC7602.jpeg

Maple in action

Allan

[JustRalph]

I had heard of Maple......even remember him from when I was a teen. But looking at his wiki, this guy is a Hall of Famer and road some serious horses and won some big races. I never knew.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Maple

[Tom]

Eddie the Anchor?

[biggestal99]

Originally Posted by Tom

Eddie the Anchor?

Ah you have bet on him on occasion....back in the day

Maple was decent when on a decent horse.

But as a bettor, give me Angel or Jorge.

Allan

[affirmedny]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

I had heard of Maple......even remember him from when I was a teen. But looking at his wiki, this guy is a Hall of Famer and road some serious horses and won some big races. I never knew.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Maple

He rode first call for Woody Stephens & Joe Cantey when they had powerhouse stables.

[Hambletonian]

Maple reminded me a lot of Jean Cruguet, not in riding style per se, but they were kind of null factors, rarely making a difference one way or the other in a horse's performance. Didn't move 'em up much, but generally didn't lose the race for them.

Cordero, on the other hand, he could find speed in a horse.

[Andy Asaro]

Twitter

[Scanman]

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

https://twitter.com/BarnLoves/status...31613659111424

This is a perfect example where the whip caused more trouble than it was of any benefit. In this case, as in many that I have observed over the years, the whip created an "unsafe" situation and result.

In the head-on, Flores strikes the left-handed around the 1/8 pole, causing his mount to begin to drift to the right a couple of paths. Continuing to around the 1/16th pole, while drifting right, it appears that while still riding with the whip in the left hand, he may have inadvertently tapped the a couple of times on the shoulder, excellerating the move to the right a couple more paths. Finally, Flores gets the whip in his right hand, but by this time it is much too late as the 's momentum has taken him another 3-4 paths impeding the causing Gutierrez to unseat.

Flores took around 6 seconds from time of the left handed strike until he moved the whip to his right hand, much too late. If for "safety" reasons he would have moved the whip immedately to his right hand after the strike, he may have prevented the incident. For a jockey with over 3,500 rides, one would think he would have the situational awareness/capacity to make the correction. However, he didn't and caused an unsafe situation which was resulted from the use of his whip. Looks like Gutierrez hit the deck pretty hard and was flat on his back for a couple seconds after the unseat, which was as much as the replay showed. At the time of this post, there was not steward's report on the SA website, so I presume that Gutierrez did not sustain any significant injury.

Had Flores ridden his mount "hands and heels", this incident and possible serious injury to another rider would have been avoided.

If for no other reason, I would like to see the "Monmouth experiment" happen. A study conducted by the University of South Australia showed that whipping a horse does not make it go faster. (https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/11/1985/htm).

FWIW, if a horse needs to whipped to go faster, then perhaps it shouldn't be a racehorse.

Finally, in the words of the greatest thoroughbred rider of all-time, Willie Shoemaker, "More horses are beaten out of the winner's circle than into it".