Simon Holt on why the current whip rules are still on his mind

AS always at dread times like these, the tragic death of 24-year-old Michael O'Sullivan as a result of a fall at Thurles serves as a sobering reminder, just three weeks away from a meeting where the speed, the danger and the desire are never greater, of the extreme risks taken by jockeys every day.

O'Sullivan rode two winners at the Cheltenham Festival in 2023, including aboard Marine Nationale in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, and those memories are bound to feature in the solemn thoughts of racegoers during a few moments of respectful silence before the same opening race of the meeting on March 11.

It is so gut-wrenchingly sad.

While the home of steeplechasing, amid annual decreases in attendance and some shocking customer feedback last year, will be expected to provide an improved experience this time, the possibility of serious injury to horses and riders can never be entirely preventable.

What can be avoided though - and this is something that now worries me ahead of all major meetings - are self destructive issues resulting from poorly drawn up rules.

I refer to the disqualification for horses whose jockeys have exceeded the whip guidelines, a rule which has put British racing in a position where it could be embarrassed.

And it is at the big meetings like Cheltenham, with so much at stake, where jockeys are more liable to try a little too hard.

When the nuclear option of disqualification for overuse of the whip was first mooted, those in favour claimed that, after one demotion, it wouldn't happen again.

I remember discussing the point with Sir Mark Prescott on 'Sky Sports Racing' a few years ago and counter-argued that to err is human. I felt there would always be the odd breach.

So, sadly, it has proved. The highest profile thus far came in last October's Cesarewitch when first past the post Alphonse Le Grande was disqualified after the stewards considered that his rider Jamie Powell had exceeded the six-strike limit by four thereby triggering disqualification.

After an appeal, the BHA's independent disciplinary committee decided, very surprisingly, that Powell's crucial 10th strike was unintentional and not the same as the previous nine, and Alphonse Le Grande was reinstated.

As the governing body has ducked out of making whip-related disqualifications on race day (thereby acknowledging how upsetting it can be for punters), backers of the nose Cesarewitch runner-up Manxman neither got paid on the day, or following the original decision to disqualify.

It was all a complete mess and made the sport look stupid.

Two months later, jump jockey Lorcan Williams struck his mount Captain Bellamy 11 times at Newbury. The horse was disqualified and Williams banned for 14 days.

So it's still happening. Not often but there is always the chance of human error.

Notwithstanding the clumsy way in which decisions to disqualify are made, the great weakness in the rule, in my opinion, is that it is completely hypothetical whether an extra strike of the whip made any difference to the result given the different ways in which horses respond.

While no longer a welfare issue, nobody wants to see horses whipped repetitively - even with the modern padded whip carried by Lorcan Williams - and there is a strong argument that too much whip can be self-defeating, often resulting in horses becoming unbalanced and losing momentum.

Jockeys who break the rules should be punished, but not the owners, trainers nor, most importantly, the punters who backed the winner.

If not disqualification, the big question is one of alternative deterrent and it can only be in the form of stiff fines and suspensions.

Such punishments have not always been effective in the past but the Premier Racing model, if it's good for anything, offers a potential template whereby a jockey guilty of overuse of the whip could be banned from a number of Premier meetings.

During the summer, Premier meetings at Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot, Sandown, Goodwood and York will feature in Hong Kong's World Pool which provides plenty of liquidity for backers and has become a significant boost to the racecourses involved.

But there is little harmonisation in rules among the various jurisdictions which stage World Pool races and, at the territory's international meeting in early December, the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club CEO Winfried Englebrecht-Bresges asserted that, if a horse was demoted in a World Pool race due to the jockey overusing the whip, the race would be voided for betting purposes.

Interviewed by the 'Racing Post', he said: "We would pay back the bets. Our global customers would not accept disqualification due to the use of the whip.

"I respect that jurisdictions have different views but customers wouldn't accept it."

He added: "If you do this with customers, they can turn away forever. We have 350,000 people in our off track betting centres and we had a horse some time ago demoted from first to fifth due to interference and we had to call the police because they were rioting.

"We have to respect the decisions of jurisdictions but we also have to protect our customers."

With the World Pool expanding all the time much to the benefit of some racecourse's coffers, the potential for some deeply embarrassing, illogical decision-making leading to a voided betting race threatens to disenchant bettors both domestically and beyond our borders.

More immediately, one hopes that the first 'major' of the year will not be smeared by a Cesarewitch-type controversy.

The tapes will soon be up for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, with another Flat season to follow, and one has to question if the stakes surrounding disqualification for overuse of the whip are just too high.

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