The 2021 Equus Horse of the Year – the last to be selected under the old criteria.) Picture: Picture: Peter Heeger/Gallo Images
A group of PVC-clad dominatrices arrived at Newmarket racecourse in the UK a few years ago and suggested, forcefully, that the gentry assembled in the paddock offer up their rumps for a whipping.
The masterful madams said racing people had been bad, bad boys and girls to allow jockeys to use riding crops on horses and might benefit from a taste of their own medicine.
Strictly speaking, these women were animal rights activists in S&M mufti. Rather surprisingly, there were no takers among the toffs at Newmarket.
British men, in particular, have a reputation for enjoying a spot of firm correction from an authoritative female. We need this sort of protest in this country.
It beats the hell out of shouting limp points of order in parliament. And, goodness knows, we need the discipline.
This happy memory came to mind when the National Horseracing Authority announced this week it had administered punishment upon young Nathan Klink, a jockey who’d broken rules on the use of a whip in a race.
New penalty guidelines on undue wielding of the “persuader” were introduced in April and Klink became the first to feel their sting.
After admitting his guilt to the stipendiary stewards, he received not only a seven-day suspension, but a R20 000 fine. The jockey managed to get 25-1 shot Time Spirit up on the line to edge out 28-10 favourite Absolute Value in an MR68 Handicap at the Vaal last week.
But it took him 17 whacks to do it. He ’fessed up to striking the five-year-old gelding five times over the 12 limit.
The new guidelines are clear. If he’d kept it to 16 smacks, the fine would have been R10 000 and he’d have been spared the “holiday”.
For 18, he’d have got 14 days off and a R25 000 klap. The smarting would have been soothed by Klink’s memory of his proudest moment in racing when he won the biggest race in Zimbabwe, the Castle Tankard at Borrowdale, aboard Ideal View for trainer Debra Swanson.
Yes, whip restrictions are necessarily strict – and might get stricter. But this doesn’t mean we should be against all whipping. Public flogging of corrupt politicians sounds like progress.
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