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I saw this article the other day –
“The technology already exists to identify when whip transgressions have been deliberate and were not just an oversight in the heat of the moment.
And the news is that the British Horseracing Authority is already looking into it.
The Turkish company WhipChip has developed a “smart” whip which records the strength and frequency of each whip stroke, and which can alert the jockey – through an LED display – when a horse is being “over-whipped”.
It should not require much modification to warn jockeys when they are approaching an agreed limit, and not just when they exceed it, while a vibration, or similar, could be added as a back-up to the purely visual warning.
WhipChip showcased their product at the Asian Racing Conference in Mumbai in 2016, after which it was drawn to the attention of the Professional Jockeys Association here in Britain.
Further enquiries now reveal that the BHA has met with the designers of WhipChip and that they express themselves “always open to considering technological innovations”.
Perhaps the future will be one in which a jockey in a big race puts down the whip – by this point flashing and vibrating – halfway up a run-in while a rival jockey goes past having kept within the rules. It may not be quite as silly – or as unlikely – as it sounds!”
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