The Australian Jockeys Association will launch a major drive to have the controversial new whip laws amended next month when it meets members of the Australian Racing Board (ARB). A spokesman says: 'We will be pushing that there is a real safety issue with our members having to count their strikes of the whip at the same time they are trying to concentrate, particularly over the final 100m of a race.'General feeling among jockeys and trainers is that the whip rules are doomed. They are quietly c
The Australian Jockeys Association will launch a major drive to have the controversial new whip laws amended next month when it meets members of the Australian Racing Board (ARB). A spokesman says: 'We will be pushing that there is a real safety issue with our members having to count their strikes of the whip at the same time they are trying to concentrate, particularly over the final 100m of a race.'
General feeling among jockeys and trainers is that the whip rules are doomed. They are quietly confident the ARB will buckle under pressure and make positive amendments, probably along the lines of the laws that govern whip riding in NZ.
Despite this the ARB is already stonewalling. ARB chief Andrew Harding says: 'There is nothing so far that has come as a bombshell, that we didn't see coming,..There have been major changes and with it comes a period of adjustment...What has happened so far is in the category of what might reasonably have been expected.' Many people, especially punters and owners, trainers, jockeys may regard these statements as mind-boggling.