Racing Victoria chairman of stewards Terry Bailey has praised jockeys for how they’ve handled changes to the whip rule while pushing Racing Australia for more flexibility.
The new whip rule, which restricts riders to five strikes before the last 100m but is unrestricted for the final 100m, was one of the key topics discussed at the national stewards’ conference this week.
Racing Australia brought the new rule in at the start of December and it’s been a real point of contention for all involved.
“There was a lot of discussion and the general view around the table in Sydney is we probably need a bit more flexibility in the rule,” Bailey said.
“Recommendations will be made to Racing Australia for their consideration and we’ll see what comes out of that.
“Obviously there’s this anomaly where riders are limited before the final 100m and then it’s unrestricted inside the final 100m.
“The conversation is to try and address that and we’ll see where that lands.”
Hear from Bailey:
Bailey acknowledges enforcing the new rule is time consuming for stewards but says jockeys on the whole have adjusted well.
“The jockeys, I believe, have done a marvellous job,” Bailey said.
“The whip rules reform first started in 2009 and everyone has come a long way since the initial changes.
“It takes a lot of time to police but all in all, the riders have done a pretty good job to get to where we are.”
There’s also been plenty of talk about jockeys using their spurs more in the wake of the restrictive whip rule and Bailey admitted there had been a push to ban them previously.
“From our perspective, a couple of years ago we did make a recommendation to ban them,” he said.
“That was basically to fall in line again with international standards – there’s not too many countries these days that allow them.
“That wasn’t supported at Racing Australia and we’ve moved on.
“No doubt we’re seeing more of them since the latest whip rule changes have come in but again horses are inspected and monitored by our vets and we’ll continue to do that.”
– racing.com
