TRY A BIT ON YOUR BACKSIDE.So the whip doesn't hurt?The latest salvo has been fired in my Sunday paper.The writer is quite sure that horses are not hurt by the whip, which is now a gentle and humane persuader.Nonsense.If this were true, there is one irrefutable argument:If they don't have any effect, just stop using the whips.I mean why have them, unless they "persuade" most horses to run faster?Recently, potential topliner Triple Elegance showed how much the whip didn't affect him.He
TRY A BIT ON YOUR BACKSIDE.
So the whip doesn't hurt?
The latest salvo has been fired in my Sunday paper.
The writer is quite sure that horses are not hurt by the whip, which is now a gentle and humane persuader.
Nonsense.
If this were true, there is one irrefutable argument:
If they don't have any effect, just stop using the whips.
I mean why have them, unless they "persuade" most horses to run faster?
Recently, potential topliner Triple Elegance showed how much the whip didn't affect him.
He threw the race away in sheer anger. That was quickly glossed over,
OK, we use the whip, and it's not the cruel bastard of a thing that it was when the likes of the great Jim Johnson were praised for beating the living daylights out of a winner. Those old-time jocks could swing a whip too fast to count.
Now we do count.
And we're careful.
But that's only because the hounds are on our tails. Everybody knows that the end of the whip in Australia is in sight, just as our forefathers knew that bear-baiting would be wiped out, along with dog and cock fighting.
It's just a matter of time.