FROM THE SHERIFF'S DESK - WHIP RULE STAYS IN THE NEWS

By John Schreck | Wednesday, April 6, 2016

John Schreck, a former Chief Steward in both Sydney and Hong Kong, has seen both the colourful and the dark sides of racing. His wealth of experience and his deep knowledge of racing matters across the board is unquestioned and the reputation he built as a racing ‘lawman’ remains firmly entrenched in racing’s history. Shreck’s personal blog, ‘From the Sheriff’s Desk', appears exclusively on HRO.

The whip rule continues to be a subject that stays in the news.

I see there is a lot of criticism by riders and in the press of the whip rule. I hope that the Australian Racing Board disregard all of that criticism because I know it will go away shortly and riders will conform to the rules.

Years ago when it was decided to start testing for steroids there was dreadful criticism of the controlling body at the time.

People were saying that because of the amount of racing we had here that fields would drop away, the form would be inconsistent blah, blah, blah.

Now, of course, it is not even talked about.

The stewards say ‘this’ is not be used on race-days and that’s it. End of story.

Exactly the same thing will happen with the whips.

Jockeys will end up conforming to the rules and everybody will be satisfied, including the animal welfare people.

Currently the stewards are making their point by imposing fairly severe fines on jockeys who break the whip rule.

I can understand jockeys being upset by the penalties being imposed. That is to be expected. None of us like to throw money on the ground. However it is to be hoped Stewards can exercise just a tiny bit of discretion.

For them not to be penalised is very simple.

All they have to do is conform to the rule and, as I say, I’m pretty certain that is what they will do that in a short space of time.

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For the record many, many good riders, past and present, never had to use the whip that much.

Ron Quinton was not a strong whip rider. Harry White rode four Melbourne Cup winners and goodness knows how many other winners. He used very, very little whip.

Douglas Whyte, champion in Hong Kong for so many years, is not a strong whip rider. Craig Williams is not a strong whip rider but he rides plenty of winners ... and Damian Browne, of course, who gets on so well with Buffering, is not a strong whip rider, so he falls into that category.

My point being that there are clearly different ways of encouraging the horse.

We have become accustomed to using the whip here in the past. Now we will just have to become accustomed to the new whip rule.

Things will settle down. No argument can be mounted against safety or animal welfare. You just can’t win a fight in those areas.

Of course some of the animal welfare people can be too extreme in their views but they are not going to go away and there are probably a growing number of people listening to their views.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Racing has to take that fact into account.

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The first day of the Championships provided the expected quality performances from the likes of Winx and Chautauqua.

The Doncaster is usually a very tough race to win and for Winx to win it the way she did on Saturday was very impressive ... as she was in her previous run in the George Ryder.

Chautauqua was equally as impressive in the T J Smith particularly the way he closed that race off.

I don’t know what his sectional was but it must have been pretty staggering!

It is exciting to see horses come from the back like that. They can do so when there is speed on of course. In the race though, watching it on television, I did think Chautauqua was too far back ... but that’s why I’m still working for a living.

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Australia has indeed got something to look forward to when Chautauqua heads for Hong Kong where he will meet, amongst others, the Dubai Al Quoz Sprint winner Buffering.

Both of these Australian horses are obviously real quality sprinters and it will be exciting if they meet in Hong Kong, provided they are both at their best, or somewhere near their best, on race-day.

Buffering is a wonderful horse. He has a big heart on him and he must just go to sleep in the aeroplane or something. He is a wonderful traveller, while we still have to find out how Chautauqua does in that regard.

I’m sure both will do Australia proud.

I look forward to that clash.