News

Whip Controls

23rd Sep 2009

Australian Racing Board - Media Release - Wednesday, 23 September 2009

The Australian Racing Board has announced its decisions arrived at after receiving recommendations made by the panel established to consider:

• The penalties that should be imposed on riders found to have breached AR.137A
• The perceived integrity concerns associated with either unfair advantage or under-performance.

The Board has adopted a revised set of penalty guidelines that address the concerns raised by the Australian Jockey’s Association at the same time as ensuring that sufficient deterrents exists to ensure maximum compliance with the new whip restrictions.

So far as the potential integrity issues that have been raised the Board has announced two measures:

• Right of protest

A right of protest will be incorporated within the Australian Rules of Racing allowing the connections of a horse to lodge an objection where they believe that an unfair advantage has been gained through breach of the whip rules.

• Whip use over entire course of race

The Australian Racing Board has reviewed the limits on whip use over the course of a race introduced on 1st August 2009, and determined that these are to be reduced.

However, whereas the rules introduced on 1st August, 2009 divided each race into the following two stages:

• Prior to 200 metre mark
• 200 metres to winning post

The Board has decided to trial amending these two stages to the following:

• Prior to 100 metre mark
• 100 metre mark to winning post

Under these new trial arrangements a rider may not before the 100m mark use the whip in a forehand manner in consecutive strides and may not use it in a forehand manner on more than 5 occasions. Furthermore a rider will from the 100 metre mark to the finish of the race subject to compliance with all of the other requirements of AR.137A, be permitted to exercise individual discretion in his use of the whip in that closing stage of the race.

The Board has approved this as a trial which will run to the 1st February 2010. During this trial period Stewards have been instructed to closely police the manner in which this discretion is exercised, with appropriate penalties imposed for deliberate overuse. It must also be noted that riders are at all times required to comply with those provisions of the rule stipulating that the whip may not be used when the horse is not in contention, is not responding, or is positioned such that use of the whip is otherwise unnecessary. So far as the horse being in contention is concerned the Stewards have been instructed that only dividend-bearing placings are to be considered.

The date of effect of these changes has been set as Saturday 26th September 2009.

The effect of these changes is to further reduce the total level of potential use of the whip while at the same time addressing issues of concern that have been identified by participant groups.