New Whip Rule Creating Waves in British Racing at BetLM

New Whip Rule Creating Waves in British Racing

LONDON —British horse racing’s rich­est day on Sat­ur­day could be over­shad­owed by a grow­ing feud over new whip rules that has led one jockey to quit before the big day at Ascot.

British Cham­pi­ons Day fea­tures the unbeaten colt Frankel in the Queen Eliz­a­beth II Stakes, with Queen Eliz­a­beth II expected to attend a race to be tele­vised in at least 75 countries.

Irish jockey Richard Hughes, though, has caused a stir by hand­ing in his rac­ing license after being banned on two occa­sions dur­ing the first week of new rules lim­it­ing the num­ber of times a rider can use his whip on a horse at the end of the race.

Fol­low­ing Hughes’ move, Frankel’s jockey Tom Queally crit­i­cized the new rules and expressed sup­port for his fel­low rider.

“Intro­duc­ing the new rules this week is rank bad tim­ing and it’s appalling for the spon­sors QIPCO, who have invested so much into flat rac­ing and the British Cham­pi­ons Series,” Queally wrote in a blog for British TV’s Rac­ing UK.

“All the talk today should have been about the British Cham­pi­ons Day at Ascot, but there hasn’t been a word about it. I feel very sorry for the spon­sors. I obvi­ously also feel sorry for Richard Hughes, who I am pretty friendly with and is one of the most respected guys in the weigh­ing room.”

Hughes said he won’t race again unless the rules are changed. He was given a 10-day sus­pen­sion for breach­ing the new reg­u­la­tions at Kemp­ton on Thurs­day when fin­ish­ing sec­ond on More Than Words. He was also given a ban Mon­day, the first day the new rules were enforced.

On both occa­sions, he was cited for using the whip six times inside the final fur­long, with the new reg­u­la­tions only allow­ing a max­i­mum of five.

“He’s hit his horse six times on the two occa­sions he’s been done, and he gets a 15-day ban for it,” Queally said. “It’s like get­ting 15 years for steal­ing a loaf of bread … the penal­ties need to be far less draconian.”

The Pro­fes­sional Jock­eys Asso­ci­a­tion has asked the British Horserac­ing Author­ity to revise the range of penalties.

Although Queally said Fri­day there “is talk of a strike on Mon­day,” the BHA later announced that talks will be held with the jock­eys on Monday.

“We will not be sus­pend­ing the cur­rent rules pend­ing these dis­cus­sions, but we do com­mit to resolv­ing this mat­ter as quickly as pos­si­ble while ensur­ing that due process is fol­lowed,” the BHA said.

The courses due to stage Monday’s fix­tures said they have not been told of any poten­tial action.

“Richard said he felt sorry for me if I was in a posi­tion where I would have to exceed the seven on Frankel to get him home by a short head,” Queally said. “My job is to extract the best out of my horse and any jockey worth his salt has an over­whelm­ing desire to win, but obvi­ously rules have to be obeyed.”

Frankel, a 3-year-old colt named for the Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, who died in 2009, has com­manded inter­est in Britain with a break­through year. He has won all eight of his races and a vic­tory on Sat­ur­day on day with nearly $ 5 mil­lion in prize money could lead to a pos­si­ble start in the Breed­ers’ Cup next month.

“Noth­ing has been decided and noth­ing will get decided until after the race on Sat­ur­day,” said Teddy Grimthorpe, rac­ing man­ager for Frankel’s owner Khalid Abdullah.

Frankel is the 1–3 favorite with most book­mak­ers, with the filly Immor­tal Verse (6–1) likely to be the clos­est of the seven challengers.

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