Over The Stable Door: Racing has given the whip hand to those who know nothing

National Hunt jockeys are only allowed to use the whip eight times throughout the duration of a race, with severe financial and disqualification penalties for those who fall foul of the rules.

Trainers were sent a 70-page memo which I read with interest. It states the whip was found to “not compromise the welfare of horses during a race” due to its design and effective use.

The scientific research concluded a horse did not feel pain when hit during a race (based upon the brain’s reaction).

So here we have clear evidence that the whip does no damage. Plus there’s the fact that fewer than one per cent of riders have breached present whip rules over the last seven years.

Why then do we need to limit the professional jockey’s use of it?

It seems the BHA are, once again, bowing to pressure from those groups with a flawed understanding of racing.

I have been on the look out for winter work riders over the past few months in preparation for the shorter days.

In my area it is not an easy task trying to locate capable riders with experience in the racing industry, Sue Smith’s is the only other race yard within a 20 mile radius.

I have usually found it easier to train less experienced people, many of whom turned out to be the most competent riders I have had, remaining here for many years.

It is a standing joke amongst some jockeys and owners that qualifications to work at Brookleigh include being pretty, polite, athletic, under 25, and (at some stage) blonde.

Although I cannot deny the yard has provided a steady stream of girlfriends to local farriers, farmer’s sons and feed reps over the years, in reality any candidate who turns up on time, is keen to learn and works as hard as I do will struggle to escape without a job offer.

The staff have usually been my main source of information on the most relevant and crucial topics of the moment – the economic climate, war in Afghanistan, the latest Big Brother eviction and celebrity scandal. A friend of one groom holidays on Necker Island so the Kate Winslet/Branson junior affair was old news to us.

Last week a fellow jockey was riding out and mooning over an unfavourable situation she had found herself in.

It began two months earlier while she worked abroad for the summer. The horse she was riding in a race ran through the wing, resulting in her sustaining a suspected broken foot.

She was in agony so I expected the worst, but it turned out to be nothing more than severe bruising which eventually subsided.

The only remaining legacy of the event, once she returned to England, was a rather unattractive disintegrating black toe nail.

Her wretched wizened nail became something of a running joke with us, fretful tales of her boyfriend’s phobic reaction were regularly relayed in detail.

“Every time he sees the rotten toe nail his lip curls in revulsion and he recoils away from me in utter disgust,” she would moan as we washed horses off.

“Anyone would think I have leprosy the way he reacts.”

Determined to hide the problem before his birthday arrived, she splashed out on a shellac pedicure in cerise pink.

“I didn’t want it be an issue on his birthday, so I covered it up,” she told me.

“It had worked well too, until I was driving home next morning.

“He rang me half hysterical, asked if the present I’d left in his bed was deliberate and was I trying to tell him something.”

It seems he had woken to find the decomposing pink toe nail lying on the duvet next to him. I suggested she kept her socks on for the time being.