It is the 7^th August 2023 and I am now intending to publish every two months unless the pattern of life suggests otherwise (which it may). Let me sum up the state of the game at today’s date.

THE  WHIP

JIM MAHON, who died in 2001, aged 84, invented the horse-friendly air-cushioned whip. He was born on December 15 1916 in Co Kilkenny. In 1925, his farming family moved to Bennettsbridge, where Jim , became a successful point-to-point rider.

After moving to England in 1940, Mahon worked on a number of farms in southern England and became a farm manager, then a partner in 1946. In 1965 he moved to Stratford-upon-Avon where, as well as farming and horses, he was involved in the family’s civil engineering business.

Mahon had long been concerned with horse welfare, and was apt to urge stewards to crack down on insensitive riders. Deciding that the whip was as culpable as the rider, he came to the conclusion that a more humane whip was needed. He built a whip which featured a pocket of air inside a cord-packed rubber casing with a fibreglass spine.

Early experiments coincided with alarm at the Jockey Club about the over-use of whips by jockeys. In 1991 he demonstrated a prototype at Lambourn. The former leading amateur rider and Jockey Club member John Hislop was impressed and arranged a meeting with the stewards. Animal Health Trust researchers carried out exhaustive tests on three Mahon prototypes and 21 others in 1994, when, in the words of the Jockey Club, the Mahon whips came “top of the league table as the least likely to cause injury”. What more could one want?

Early models made their debut in show jumping with Nick Skelton, and on the racecourse on horses owned by Sir Peter O’Sullevan. Lord Oaksey described it as “the kindest kid-glove aid for all riders”.

Jim Mahon remained active into his eighties and enjoyed his finest hour in 1997 when he trained Blue Creek, the winner of the Martell Foxhunters’ Chase at Aintree. He died in 2001, but the Jockey Club carried on the work until it was satisfied that the final Mahon model was perfect and painless. In 2006 it became the only whip authorised to be used on British Racecourses. It is now a worldwide success. Job done? End of story? No.

More recently the “perception” of cruelty has been used to rally anti-whip support. The difference is that Mahon and the British Authorities spent 35 years testing, testing, testing, and only accepted the final model because it had passed the tests. The “perception” party simply say “it is a whip, it makes one think of cruelty, so it must go” which is such a pathetic attitude that it should be kicked into touch, robustly, every time it opens its mouth. The trouble is that the British Horseracing Authority seems to have been infiltrated by people who insist that “perceptionists” have a case. If they ever had a case, it was dealt with in the 25 years of research done by Mahon and the Jockey Club before 2006.

29^th July 2023. Ascot: Jim Crowley (jockey) wins the feature race by a head. He is promptly fined £10,000 and banned from race-riding for several weeks, punishment for one extra stroke of a feather duster (a whip which does no harm), as a result of a new version of the Whip Rules which the BHA is struggling to introduce.

A BHA spokesman commented “there was very little justification for the use of the whip in the closing stages….” What kind of an idiot is this? The closing stages are when use of the whip is most appropriate. In his mind this spokesman sees a dangerous weapon,  whereas I discovered in 2011 that the dangerous weapon is a feather duster. How did I find out? By beating myself. Repeatedly. Has he beaten himself?

Another nameless BHA “expert”, commenting on the £10,000 fine, said, “Hefty penalties were needed to safeguard the perception of the sport…..”  PERCEPTION! Who cares about perception if no work has been done to establish the truth. Those who have done the work say the padded whip is innocuous and so it is.

GAMBLING

i really don’t understand. If the Government thinks that excessive gambling is bad for the people (which is true), it should penalise those who encourage excessive gambling.  Normal people do not wake up in the morning with a burning desire to bet. They bet because life can be dull and those who offer gambling as an entertainment are on to a winner as long as they persist in recommending their brand of self-harm. So they persist.

The government knows for a fact that each year the people lose millions of pounds to the bookmakers. That is taken for granted. That is what betting seems to be there for. Usually Governments are there to change that kind of situation. In this case it seems that an unhealthy habit is constantly being recommended by the bookmakers and has been given free range by government for no good reason. Am I being stupid?

THE VACUUM

At the top end of all industries there is a space, filled by the high and mighty who make the rules and see that they are obeyed. One exception. The top end of the British racing industry is filled by the BHA. Rather rude of me to mention it, but I have been watching the area quite carefully for 40 years and very seldom do I notice signs of healthy life in the BHA. It seems as though the parties concerned are constantly making mistakes, as a result of which the sport finds itself in financial difficulties. When was the last time you heard of a BHA heavyweight being sacked? Not very often, I suggest. On the other hand the talent for hiring very disappointing performers is impressive.

In my first item above I discovered two BHA spokespersons who showed themselves as having absolutely no real knowledge of what racing is all about And yet…. and here’s another example of what I am talking about.

British racing has been notorious for more than 20 years for difficulties at the start of jump races with big fields: difficulties that penalise some and favour others. This means that results of many races are misleading, because they do not reflect the true merits of the horses concerned. This means that owners, trainers and jockeys, as well as punters, are cheated. No other sport in the world would tolerate such an unacceptable situation for one minute, let alone 20 years.

When one looks at the starting process used before these races (often extremely important races with huge prizes) it is obvious that it is flawed (the process, not the men on the shop floor) and, incidentally it could be put right in a day. Has anybody been sacked for criminal neglect in this area? Not as far as I know. Has anybody lifted a finger to make the change that would remedy the situation? No. Nobody at the top is interested, apparently.

The odd thing is that beneath that vacuum at the top there is a wealth of talent. Never have there been so many brilliant young jockeys, produced by an education system which has been churning them out at a rate of knots by a system invented at Kingsclere in Berkshire. The Balding family have done marvels.

Employing these jockeys are trainers, owners and breeders doing what they do as well as they possibly can for as long as they can – but strapped for cash because of the Vacuum-at-the-top’s failure to keep up with the rest of the world’s racing industries over the last 30 years.

In the last several months a very strong team of the best people in the industry have put together a plan for survival and resurrection, and have (as far as I know) offered it to the BHA for implementation. It could be the life jacket that saves the drowning swimmer. One question: why would one offer a life jacket to a vacuum? I really do hope that when the push comes to shove the life jacket will be calling the shots.

Best wishes.

DONEC