Espinoza fined for excessive whipping of Stellar Wind

[Rileyoriley]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

What's the goal? To alienate as many people as possible until there are just 100 people left in the country who like to watch and bet on horse races in which riders beat the s&!t out of their mounts?

--Dunbar

[Danzig]

If use of a crop makes one squeamish, I have to wonder how you are a racing fan at all. Consider the life of a racehorse and all it endures. Its not exactly a natural life for them.
No one wishes to see a horse treated cruelly at all.
I don't recall seeing anyone remark about victors use of his stick that race til word came out he had been fined.
Perhaps racing should name a maximum number of times a jock can whip? That way they'd know 20 was OK, 21 isnt.
And then if a horse loses by a nostril we will have complaints about the arbitrary number of times a jock can use his crop. We will be told that the new crops are padded, and there's no reason to limit, because they aren't that bad...

[Arletta]

The "non regulars" that watched the races with us "regulars" are the ones that notice the whipping and make the comments.. They don't understand that it "doesn't hurt" and that it's necessary to whip them..however many times it takes to get their nose across the wire. They are the ones that won't go out of their way to become interested in learning to read a racing forum or become an avid fan or bet/watch except when they are with "us" and are just along for the ride.

[Arletta]

"Thoroughbred racing would be denatured if the whip were ever banned. Horses are not cognisant of the ambitions of a race, but it is part of their eternal appeal that they are mostly complicit with them. The sport depends on this because a horse’s will to win is at least as important to the essence of competition as its natural ability to run.

If the sport isn’t particularly careful, use of the whip may be demonised and its important role forever misapprehended.
This isn’t a problem specific to U.S. racing. In thrall to the ambition of winning, jockeys in many countries and jurisdictions have been guilty of injudicious use of the whip over the years. "



http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com...txHwA.facebook

[DonGuido]

Originally Posted by Arletta

The "non regulars" that watched the races with us "regulars" are the ones that notice the whipping and make the comments.. They don't understand that it "doesn't hurt" and that it's necessary to whip them..however many times it takes to get their nose across the wire. They are the ones that won't go out of their way to become interested in learning to read a racing forum or become an avid fan or bet/watch except when they are with "us" and are just along for the ride.

And that will never change. You either have the bug when you are young or are born with the gene and your family allows you to build on it or become a direct part of it . . . but for most of others it's the opposite.

Sometimes it happens when you're older like for me . . . being a casual fan and my wife, born with the gene and the love, pulled me in hook line and sinker . . . exposing the gene I always had. I've found in the many times I've tried you can't really turn them into a fan of any type and can't make them understand the sport (the good or the "bad") really at all.