Whip Crack Away !!

With what hapeened to Ruby Walsh yesterday at Aintree and all the other problems over the whip, jump racing as we knew it is surely doomed. The likelyhood of us seeing the real winner of each race is diminishing all the time. The winter weather will soon begin to take grip and with the prospect of heavy ground ahead it is going to be difficult for any jockey to be able to get their horse to complete 3 miles + at a stiff course such as Ascot without pulling up if he can only use his whip a total of 8 times without being banned. Ruby's comments after his ride at Aintree could well prove correct.

In the future long distance chases may see fewer of the better jockeys taking part for fear of getting banned for other Grade 1 races and heaven knows what will happen in something like The Gold Cup or Grand National.

Punters and Jockey's will have to rely on a horse loving the game and running on at the end of a race of it's own accord. Also counting up how many times a horse has been hit during a race before winning will surely become an integral part of form study and maybe the Racing Post could look to putting this information in their race analysis.

Horses that have historically been hit more than 8 times in a race without winning will become surplus to requirements and not fit for the purpose of horseracing and will no doubt be consigned to the knackers yard or it's equivalent.

Jockeys may well begin to ride longer in a race so that they can make more use of their legs and feet to get the their mounts moving and headgear may become more widely used to get horses more concentrated during a race
.
Lets hope some sense can be made of the mess we have got ourselves into.