Racing: No gain without pain for the Turf's whipping boys: Adrian Maguire's trial by video has reopened the debate on how and when jockeys should use the 'persuader'. Sue Montgomery reports

TO whip, or not to whip: that is the question which is being asked but not properly answered in the racing world. The debate has been simmering for years and last week came to the boil again after Adrian Maguire was apparently fingered at a well-meaning but controversial Jockey Club briefing on the subject.

The briefing was intended to explain the Club's new guidelines on whip use, including the 'six hit' rule which will allow racecourse stewards to enquire into possible misuse after six strokes in the closing stages, but it was the apparent concentration on Maguire which provoked most comment.

Few jump jockeys have made a better impression at the start of a career than the 21-year-old Irishman, regarded by most as a certain future champion. He is a tremendous horseman, forceful yet sympathetic, and the Club's stewards were strongly criticised when they held up several instances of his riding as examples of 'how not to'.

Leading the defence was Toby Balding, for whom Maguire won the Cheltenham Gold Cup last year on Cool Ground, being banned for excessive zeal with the whip in the process. 'Maguire is certainly not whip- happy; I do not consider that he has abused a single horse of mine, and that includes Cool Ground,' Balding said.

The trainer believes that the Maguire argument is part of a wider, and for him more worrying, issue. 'I accept that the disciplinary committee are trying to stop jockeys injuring horses with whips. But they seem to be wanting to please everyone other than the professionals. It's the trainers and jockeys who are the ones on the shop floor, the ones who have to go racing every day and put on the spectacle. And we're not in total agreement that this six-stroke trigger is liveable with.

'Racing is actually about competition and competition is about pain, let's not delude ourselves. We're asking athletes, who happen to be horses, to exert themselves to their fullest and to do that they sometimes have to go through a pain barrier. And the whip is what generates their innate ability, without its motivation most of them would not bother.

'In racing they get well fed and housed - if you wanted to come back in another life then you should come back as a racehorse. It's like living in the Ritz, and about eight times a year you're asked to go and run a bit faster than you normally would, and the worst that might happen is that A Maguire might smack you on the bum.'

At the two extremes of the whip argument are the 'hit-it-where-it's-got- hair' brigade, and those whose views ultimately extend to the banning of horse sports.

Those in between are united in their desire to stamp out misuse of the whip. No sensible person wants to see horses brutalised in the name of sport or otherwise, and there is little doubt that the Jockey Club's present directives have sharply curtailed the sort of incidents once seen regularly at the Festival, where exhausted horses were all but filleted up the run-in. But the best jockeys, by and large, do not abuse the horses on whose co-operation they depend.

One problem all along has been that the very word whip is an emotive one, and to someone who does not fully comprehend the nature of horses the idea of one being hit at all - even though 'hit' does not necessarily equate with 'flog' - is abhorrent.

But the Jockey Club is adamant that the views of the layman must not be dismissed lightly: modern racing is part of the entertainment business, and if the public is turned off by what it sees, the show will not go on.

The working party that drew up the new guidelines - which come into effect in July - comprised stewards, vets, trainers and jockeys and took advice from owners, animal welfare groups and overseas Turf authorities, some of which are also being forced to address the subject in the face of adverse public opinion.

The Jockey Club's spokesman, David Pipe, said: 'We were not saying this is Adrian Maguire, and he's a rotter, and the intention was certainly not to pick on him to the exclusion of others. But he is in the public eye as a very capable jockey and there are certain aspects of his style that could be better.'

Under the new rules, jockeys will be prohibited from raising their arm above shoulder height, to prevent extreme force being used. 'The first priority is the welfare of the horse, but we still want competitive, entertaining racing,' Pipe said. 'Hitting the horse with the whip high looks bad whether it's doing damage or not, and the look of the thing has to be taken into consideration these days.

'But what we are not on the road to is banning whips altogether. That idea has been rejected out of hand because of the safety aspect. It is necessary for a jockey to carry a whip for guidance and balance as well as encouragement.'

Joe Mercer, one of the best and most stylish riders of his day, emphasised the necessity of both whips and education in their use. He said: 'Racing would be impossible without it; two-year-old races in particular, with green young horses, would be very dangerous.

'A racehorse doesn't have the same obedience and steering as an ordinary horse; they're different, spirited and corned up, quite frightening things.

'The public see them going past at 40 miles an hour and it looks easy, but for those who are actually on them it's quite different and the whip is an essential tool.

'Whipless races would be a waste of time, very dull as well as being very unsafe. But having said that, young jockeys should be taught more about when to use it and when not. The older ones can persuade a horse to go without whacking him every stride. They use their hands and bodies to get him going and then maybe in the closing stages pick up the whips.

'But the young boys tend to go for it as soon as the horse comes off the bridle, give him three or four smacks instead of using other skills to get him to lengthen and stretch. The whip is the last resort, but it shouldn't be the first.'

(Photograph omitted)