HOLLYWOOD PARK : Gold Cup Outcome Resurrects Thorny Issue That Won’t Go Away--Jockey’s Use of Whip

The outcome of last Sunday’s Hollywood Gold Cup has resurrected a thorny issue in thoroughbred racing: the use of the whip.

Is the whip an integral part of the sport, required to elicit the best possible performance from a recalcitrant creature? Or is it a tool of abuse, used in place of sound horsemanship?

Charlie Whittingham, trainer and part owner of Sunday Silence, maintains that the horse resents being whipped and proved it again last weekend. Sunday Silence was beaten a head by Criminal Type after a stretch-long duel, during which Pat Valenzuela hit Sunday Silence 10 times in the last eighth of a mile.

Valenzuela, on the other hand, insisted after the race that Sunday Silence responded to the whip and was gaining on Criminal Type at the end.

Whittingham and Valenzuela will need to reach an agreement before Sunday Silence runs again. In the meantime, the whip question is beginning to receive attention from several voices within the racing industry. Some go so far as to suggest whips be banned. Others see a need for increased regulation, at the very least.

The use of whips is barely addressed in the California rules of racing. Jockeys may not whip a horse on the head, or use the whip “excessively or brutally,” leaving enforcement open to interpretation.

There is even a stipulation that seems to encourage the use of the whip without placing any limits. Section 1688 states, in part, that: “No jockey carrying a whip during a race shall fail to use the whip in a manner consistent with using his best efforts to win.”

Translation: If a jockey is beaten by a nose and hasn’t used his whip, he has some explaining to do.

Hollywood Park steward Pete Pedersen noted that jockeys are regularly reminded to be judicious in their use of the whip.

“We decry any overuse of the whip,” Pedersen said. “We’ve had riders flailing away at horses who were hopelessly beaten. I think that’s terrible, and we call them in when it happens.”

Pedersen admitted, however, that jockeys can be encouraged to excessive whip use by demanding trainers and a single-minded public--a public interested only in cashing a bet.

Ken Church, a former jockey who works in the Del Mar publicity department, recalls that pre-race instructions rarely included a lecture on cruelty to animals.

“A trainer wanted to see his jock coming down there doing something to win,” said Church, who won the 1964 Santa Anita Handicap on Mr. Consistency. “He wasn’t too concerned about how many times the horse got hit.”

Most horses don’t even need to be urged on with constant whipping, Church added.

“You can get a little extra from a horse when you sting them the first time,” Church said. “It’s more from surprise than anything. But after a while, they go the other way. It’s got to be a form of communication, not punishment.”

Some riders can be quite crude in their “communication.”

“I’ve had horses come back bleeding from whip cuts,” trainer Dave Hofmans said. “Those riders I avoid using.”

Caught in close quarters during a race, horses are sometimes hit in the face by opposing riders--accidentally or otherwise. Other jockeys can be targets, too.

“There were times I came back with welts across my back,” Church said. “I remember getting hit on the toe in cold weather, and man did that hurt.”

Bill Shoemaker once returned from a race, whipped and bruised, and had a few words for Johnny Longden.

“I don’t mind you beating me for the money, John,” Shoemaker said. “But I do mind you beating me up in the bargain.”

As far as critics of the whip are concerned, the riders can take care of themselves. It is the horse who is being abused.

Monty Roberts, famous for his “no-pain” method of training young horses, would like to see whip use curtailed. Lighter, thicker whips should be used, he says, in place of the thin, fiberglass whips that weigh up to a pound.

“I’m not going to suggest that some kind of contact at some point could not be an advantage,” Roberts said from his office in Solvang. “What I do know, however, is that eventually every horse will run slower from the use of the whip.

“The horse is an ‘into-pressure’ animal,” Roberts said. “Unlike a human, who recoils from pain, the horse has a tendency to press on pain. It stands to reason, then, that if you’re hitting them on the flank, they will back into the pain and consequently run slower.”

Race commentator Trevor Denman also is a strong advocate of limiting the whip. His calls at Santa Anita and Del Mar reflect his attitude.

“I get laughed at as being naive,” said Denman, who is a member of a Washington-based animal rights organization. “They say I’m obsessed. But I don’t agree, because if anything we’ve got the extreme case going the opposite way.

Denman has been urging the American racing industry to adopt England’s rule that limits a jockey to 10 strikes in the last quarter mile.

“If English racing can do it, then we can,” he said. “This could go on for two or three years, and then you reduce the number to five. And then you reduce it to naught.”

Notes

Jefforee, ridden by Corey Nakatani, took the lead at the six-furlong mark and held off Bidder Cream in the stretch to win Wednesday’s $37,000 feature race at Hollywood Park.

Jefforee finished a neck in front of Bidder Cream in the 1 1/16-mile turf allowance race, with Tanya’s Tuition another 2 1/2 lengths back in third.