It doesn’t need a court case Ricky. If the RSPCA convince the public it is cruel, then a labour Government would ban it.
There are other considerations too. The St Johns Ambulance charity has volunteers at (as far as I know) all racecourses. If the RSPCA turn against racing St Johns Ambulance will turn their backs on us too.
Sponsers won’t want to be associated with a "cruel sport" either. Because if Joe Public thinks it’s cruel it will be counter-productive for even those sympethetic to racing to sponser. Sponsering races would lose them business not gain it. No terrestrial TV station will want to show it either. Even if racing survives as a sport, we wouldn’t be able to keep our prize money levels, so quality of racing drops and racing would never be the same again.
Problem is we can’t allow the RSPCA to in effect blackmail "racing" in to things that just don’t make sense.
Although we haven’t got there yet, with the RSPCA’s view that quote:
"The whip is primarily used for safety and encouragement purposes. The RSPCA does
not
believe that a ban would be safe or practical as there will be instances where its use is required for genuine safety purposes".