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Corm, I don’t claim any special powers of prescience.
My theory, for what it’s worth, is that very few commentators/pundits/pros had even read the Review document when they first commented on it. Having not taken the necessary time to read it, it is of course highly unlikely that they would have put in the necessary time to arrive at an informed opinion on it.
This is entirely normal practice in my experience.
I would also be very surprised to hear that board members at the BHA who signed off on this Review had all read it closely. Jim McGrath, in his letter in the Racing Post pointed out the massive gap between the Reviews
findings
(which are interesting) and its
recommendations
(which are barmy).
The willingness to sign off on this Review at board level and the willingness amongst professionals to be seen to support it had nothing to do with substance and everything to do with the way the issue was spun.
There has been much criticism of McCoy/Dettori/Nicholls/Cecil for lending their names to the report at launch. But, ask yourself, whose is the biggest sin. The pro who is asked to rubber stamp a 10 month report ‘for the good of the sport’ or the Review Group itself which had 10 months to come up with recommendations? Or, the board that signed off recommendations that were so badly flawed that they have undergone constant redrafting and review in an ongoing process which is still not complete?
When recommendations are not based on a reports own findings it’s likely there will be problems. When the recommendations in question are based upon false distinctions, false premises and spin then problems are pretty much guaranteed.
‘The hallmark of a professional sportsperson is being able to keep their heads and perform at their best, maintaining control and peak performance, while ‘in the zone’."
You’ll be able to name for us Corm, the professional footballer that can play 99.25% + of their matches without conceding a free kick for any infringement of the rules? Or the teams that can go through 99.25%+ of their matches without conceding any cards? Or any penalties? They all know the rules after all. They can count how many times they’ve been booked can’t they?
The number of bans is up in both flat and jumps despite penalties so harsh that they’ve caused serious unrest in the profession. Please consider that it’s the rules, not the jockeys, that might be the problem.
You can polish a turd, you can spin a turd, you can even tweak a turd but it will remain a turd. The rules stink and every single flaw in them and every single climbdown we’ve seen, and are yet to see, was entirely predictable.
The reason the rules are so easily broken is that they’re rubbish. They’re not fit for purpose. Nothing that has been unveiled today will alter that fundamental truth.
KF, there’s no reason why you should be familiar with everybody’s position on everything.
I have been writing on the dangers of tampering with whip regulation for several months. Long before the rules were even published.Corm.
The rate of whip offences across all steeplechases is just under 1% at 0.97%.
At listed class and below this drops to 0.96% and Grade Ones reach the dizzy heights of 1.2%
If you think that this difference of 0.23% over a small sample of grade one chases constitutes clear evidence of a ‘win at all costs mentality’ then I don’t honestly think there’s much point debating the facts any more is there?
There is no evidence to support this argument. It was the spin put on the report by its authors.
At the time this process began in Nov ’10 whip offences were, if anything, in decline over jumps. The Cheltenham Festival figures I’ve quoted you show that the ‘culture change’ sought was in fact already in place. 2 bans from 170 odd rides at the toughest jumps meeting on earth.
There was never a case for these changes.
Corm,
You repeatedly refer to a ‘win at all costs mentality’.
I think we’d all agree that Cheltenham is the biggest, toughest, most prestigious and most competitive jumps meeting of them all.
At last year’s Festival there were around 470 odd rides.
A total of 4 breeches and only 2 bans for frequency as far as I can see.
Muir and Stier must have been gutted! A cynic might argue that that pair were the only two guys in England who were banking on a jockey breaking the whip rules in the National. Lord knows they had nothing else to hang their proposed changes on.Your fundamental position though Corm is that a reduction in whip use is, in itself, a desirable end. You are not alone in this. Hence we often hear of ‘tired horses being hit’.
This means you make a distinction (moral perhaps?) between the stick and every other technique, practice and piece of equipment that we use in racing. This is a fundamental error. It’s an entirely false distinction.
Sticks are safe. There is no sense in which proper use of a stick is in some way less ‘moral’ than other acts. Nor is it wrong to race competitively on an animal that is ‘tired’. It’s a competitive sport. It’s meant to be tough. Tough but not cruel.
Tired horses will often be the ones most in need of guidance, steering assistance and in some cases driving to do what they must do at a particular moment. That is racing.
You’re right that no set of rules can be ‘perfect’. The last set of rules was not perfect either but it was a damn sight more workable than these rules. Anybody who has watched racing in recent weeks (both flat & jumps) and has not yet realised the impact these rules are having is either incapable of racereading or is being deliberately obtuse.
If there is an issue with graded races over 3 1/4m plus (& I don’t know off the top of my head how many such races there are and whether your stat is of statistical significance) then fine maybe that can be looked at rationally and intelligently. There is constant monitoring of racing injury rates over all courses and racetypes and action follows where problems can be identified. The same can be done with whip breaches, whether that relates to individual riders, courses, races. What makes no sense at all though is to make a swingeing change that will only exacerbate the issues in particular contexts.
I too was amazed to hear that the Horsemens Group saw their role as one of mediation between ‘the two sides’.
I’m thoroughly fed up of this being painted as a BHA vs Jockeys issue. It is clearly nothing of the sort. That the rules don’t work is now obvious. That this impacts everybody with a stake in the sport ought to be equally obvious. What’s happening to the jockeys is merely a symptom of the malaise. The real battle is between the good of the sport and the contagion of bad regulation.
The fact that the Horsemens Group still has no position of its own on what is happening to the sport just goes to show how painfully slow so many people have been to think through and properly comprehend what’s at stake here. There are clearly a good many people who simply don’t get it yet.
Hardly a surprise Yeats. Crowley gets 5 days for hitting a horse ‘out of contention’ when just a few lengths off the pace at Wolverhampton. CD Timmons gets a ban for hitting a horse when ‘clearly winning’ when in front at Fontwell (a course notorious for horses veering towards the exit in the rail).
It’s not just the ‘frequency’ decisions that have been bizarre under these new rules.
The ‘safety’ red herring is one of the many obvious flaws in the new rules. If I’m approaching an obstacle at 30 mph with horses either side of me and I sense that my horse is thinking of diving out & taking other horses with him and I decide to give him two sharp smacks to get him back onto the right leg, focused on the job and safely over the fence there is no way that stewards will sanction that after the event.
My sense that the horse is going to duck out may be based on many years of riding experience, thousands of rides under rules, close knowledge of this particular horse and this particular track but there would be no way that I could demonstrate that the horse would have behaved in a certain way but for my actions.
In other words, only safety action that doesn’t work (ie I use the smacks and the horse ducks anyway) can ever be demonstrably safety based.
It’s just one of the many nonsenses of these rules. There is no room for a professional equine sportsman or woman to use their judgement and their expertise to do what is best for the horse and it’s chances. Brian Harding’s ban amply demonstrated this. The rules do not allow sufficient scope for the riding of all types of horses in all types of circumstances. They are not fit for purpose. I can’t believe that the BHA hasn’t realised this by now but of course even if they have their inexcusable haste and naivite in introducing these rules has left them nowhere to go.
Just to be clear, I’m not ‘pro whip’. I’m pro racing and I’m pro the racehorse. I love horses. Have done my whole life. I love seeing thoroughbred horses. They are the pinnacle of what the horse can be as far as I’m concerned.
If we love horses and want to see the thoroughbred continue to thrive then we need to see that animal raced. If we don’t race them we lose them. It is really that simple.
Racing means extending the horse and encouraging, enabling, urging and sometimes pushing it very hard to do what it can do and be what it can be.
Now, some people believe we can continue to race under the new whip rules with no ill effect. I respect those who take that view, not least because many of them have the same desire to see the sport and the horse survive, but I disagree. I might be wrong. But the reason I, and others, are passionate about it is because we love the animal and we love the sport.
The question is not about the whip per se it’s about how we race and as I say that’s a vital thing to get right. No racing. No thoroughbred.
I was referring to public behaviour. In terms or racegoing, betting on racing etc. The survey found that none of the rule changes that has been made would have a significant positive impact on any of those behaviours. Or, for that matter, on perceptions. To put it very simply, our survey said ‘the rules won’t make any difference to how people feel or what they do.’
Why would people complain to the BBC on a welfare issue? Errrrr, because the BBC is a
public service
broadcaster. Because they promote the Grand National. Because they pay money to screen it. Because that money is
our
money as licence payers.It’s gathered in the form of a tax. It’s not C4, it’s not Sky, it’s the BBC that’s why a few hundred people contacted them after the Grand National. Because when people see the BBC promote, pay for and screen something they disapprove of they figure, given that they’ve paid for it, they have a right to complain.
It’s a fair point though. Where are the other letters? How many letters were written to other bodies? 8? 80? Where are they? The BBC is required to publish such figures. Where are the BHAs? I quote the BBC’s figure of 8 because it is the only figure in the public domain. If anyone has another piece of data they should publish it. What was the full extent of the public outrage on the whip? It would be helpful to know. It would be especially helpful to know what it was in November 2010 when the BHA sat down with the RSPCA and promised them the culture change they demanded.
Only 8 of about 300 people who contacted the BBC after the National, from an audience of 8 million (10 million for the highlights show later) had a concern about the whip. None of those concerns are addressed by the rule changes. The rule changes won’t impact on those concerns, or on attitudes, or on behaviour. This much we know.
That people will be happier with 8 hits rather than 10, or 16 is entirely a projection that you have made in your own mind. There is no evidence to support it. There is however some evidence to contradict your prediction, in the form of the survey conducted by the BHA. Rest assured though that exactly the same people who turned 8 complaints into something to be included in reviews into the Grand National and the review into the whip will do the same next year, and the year after and the year after that. Such is the rod that the BHA has made for racing’s back.
I hope you’re right in a way Corm. I hope that despite all the evidence to the contrary, this is where it will stop and we can get back to framing rules on what’s best for the horse and for the sport. Maybe I’m too cynical.
But Cormack is right, the public won’t have as much of a problem with the new whip rules, even when they are broken by a couple of strokes. 10 won’t look half as bad as 20. Under old rules a jockey could get away with 16 or 24 strokes and with just a slap on the wrist. 16 or 24 hits is far less likely now than it was under the old rules. Therefore, we shouldn’t get the outcry of last year even if the rules are officially broken. Because it won’t LOOK as bad.
I’m sure the BBC is mightily relieved that the avalanche of 8 comments that they received last year is to be stemmed by this bold initiative. Be terrible to see that ‘outcry’ repeated.
Walsh’s appeal did not dispute that 9 strokes were used. His argument was that one of those was necessary for ‘safety’.
I don’t think he ever had a strong case and the appeal was very unlikely to succeed. Had he been successful the ‘safety’ defence would have become a loophole to be exploited in a range of circumstances. Panel were right (in the context of these rules) to uphold ban I think.What is interesting to consider is under what circumstances ‘safety’ would be accepted as a justification for any use of the stick. If the use works then the horse will hopefully avoid the situation the use was intended to address. Seems a Kafkaesque Catch 22 to me. The only time a jockey will be able to
prove
it was a safety stroke is when the horse fails to respond and crashes through the wing anyway. If the horse responds as the rider intends a steward will quite likely struggle to see it as a safety stroke rather than simply ‘correction’.
But that’s NOT the point. The point is that if you get whip usage under control within the sport you don’t need to concern yourself with the difficult task of educating the public. You simply won’t have an issue to contend with.
The public, when watching the National, has no idea at all what the whip rules are. They don’t know what constitutes ‘under control’.
A jockey can be within the rules and have his ‘whip usage under control’ but still be seen to strike a horse 8 times in the run up to the line. Those are the shots the public will see. If your assertion that the public reaction to the whip is based on emotion rather than logic is correct, then the fact that a ride is within the rules or not will make no difference to their perception.
This is something that (as I keep stressing) the changes will make no difference to at all. If you object to a horse being struck you will still object to it being struck 8 times rather than 10.
It’s a false distinction to make. As false in fact as the distinction between carrying and using a stick and all the other ways a jockey can push, persuade, urge, drive and compel a horse to do what it needs to do when it needs to do it.
Maybe the new penalties will increase compliance from 99.25% (higher than that amongst fully fledged professionals) to what 99.5%, 99.75%? But I’d bet 1.01 that even if that occurs, if you survey another 2000 joe publics a year on their attitudes to the whip will be exactly the same as they were in the last survey.
And guess what? They’ll still be wrong.Asking the RSPCA to frame the sports whip rules based on pubilc opinion surveys was as stupid as asking the BNP to frame immigration policy based on a survey of their plans in the Daily Mail.
Corm, you say:
"I think it’d be very hard to convince the public that use of the whip wasn’t in some way harmful. The (negative) response to whip use among the general public is largely emotional IMO and logic finds it difficult, often impossible, to overcome emotion.
Wouldn’t it be easier by a factor of 100 to educate the jockeys on proper (and within rule) use?"
It’s not ‘very hard’ at all. The BHA’s own yougov research turned a majority of disaprovers into a minority simply with a two line explanation!
You’re right that the response is largely ’emotional’ and certainly my experience on here is that ‘logic finds it difficult, often impossible, to overcome emotion’
The problem with making jockeys compliant (&SC’s observations suggest that compliance is increasing currently) is that it will have almost no measurable impact on public perception whatever. That’s not me guessing. That’s what the yougov polling tells us. Changing penalties, limiting strokes, removing prize money. None of these things sufficiently shift either opinion or behaviour. That’s the fact of the matter. What were you saying about emotion?
