Welcome to the Madhouse!

Gosh, it's all been happening this weekend. More lengthy whip bans, Flat and jumping. Gales. Somersby yet again confirming that he is top-class at two miles. Ascot's dress code fiasco. The Spirit Son insider-trading debacle. And, unfortunately, further confirmation of just how badly the BHA have got things wrong over the whip.

This confirmation came in the Chatroom in yesterday's Racing Post when a reader called for disqualification when the jockey is found guilty of "whip abuse". Whip abuse??? I assume that he was meaning slightly exceeding the arbitrarily-set quota. But have we gone so far down the track in the wrong direction that even regular racing followers have now been instructed to regard this as "abuse", which is one of the most emotive words in the modern lexicon? In the modern world, animal abuse has become nearly as much a taboo subject as child abuse. Let's be clear about this: horses are not abused with the whip, but the BHA was forced into taking a more proactive stance on the matter because of Jason Maguire's ride in the Grand National. Action was required, but it is only now becoming plain how badly this action has misfired.

The vast majority of Britons do not follow racing, but get a once-a-year look through the keyhole on Grand National Day on the BBC. For years, British racing had had guide-lines to make sure that use of the whip both not only is harmless but, nearly as importantly, is seen to be harmless too. These guide-lines were working - helped by the fact that modern-day air-cushioned whips would not be much use for harming a horse even if one tried. It was just terribly unfortunate that the winning ride in the Grand National badly flouted the time-honoured guide-lines and, more pertinently, the winner nearly collapsed through exhaustion after the race. Thus the once-a-year peep through the keyhole presented a grossly unrepresentative image; but the damage had been done. Damage control was required. The onus was suddenly on the BHA to make sure that the wider public appreciated that there basically is no abuse with the whip in racing - which there isn't - and to make sure that jockeys would not ride in the manner which Maguire had done on that one occasion. For that latter part, it merely needed to re-emphasise the existing guide-lines, because Maguire would not have ridden as he did had he followed the guide-lines which were already in place. And the former part need not have been difficult, because it only involved telling the truth, making the public appreciate the situation - that use of the whip in racing does not harm horses - as it is.

So what the BHA has done is to scrap those guide-lines and to provide a barnful of evidence to the wider public that suggests that there is a problem in racing as regards use of the whip. Strange but true. The new rules which have unnecessarily replaced the previous guide-lines have predictably led to a barrage of whip suspensions, and all that these suspensions have done is to confirm the suspicions of those (probably few) people who had suspected that there was a problem. After all, the logic would go, there has to be a problem if all the leading jockeys are constantly being banned for whip abuse, doesn't there? It almost defies belief that, having engineered A P McCoy's winning of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the BHA (well, it was the BHA spin-off RFC which produced the SPOTY coup, not the BHA itself) could create a situation in which that jockey hitting a horse nine times rather than seven, or whatever it was, in some race somewhere that would usually have attracted no attention at all could end up as a main headline on the general BBC news, "BBC Sports Personality of the Year A P McCoy banned from racing for whipping a horse".

It has been plain for weeks that the course on which the BHA is taking us is doing untold damage to the sport in the eyes of the wider public - but what is only now clear is that it is also doing the sport damage in the eyes of its own regular followers too. That regular racing fans have now been taught to regard nine strokes of the whip in the finish as "abuse" is just disastrous. The eight-stroke limit, or whatever it is, is a purely arbitrary figure, plucked out of the air. If nine strokes is abuse, then so is seven, so is five, so is three ... . It's as if the government had decided that 'six of the best' for schoolchildren represented abuse, so teachers weren't allowed to cane a child more than five times. That clearly would never have happened. The cane is either deemed acceptable (which nowadays it isn't) or it isn't. Ditto with the whip. To have instilled in racing's audience, as well as in the wider audience, the idea that nine strokes of the whip represents abuse of the horse, the BHA has set us off down a road which has only one logical end-point: the end of racing as a competitive sport, with asking a horse for maximum effort being deemed unacceptably cruel.

It is time for the BHA to do what it should have been doing all along - telling the public that air-cushioned whips do not hurt the horse, that jockeys apply these whips in a measured and tempered way in races closely supervised by stewards, and that there is nothing unacceptable in a situation where at the end of the race the jockey uses his whip in a responsible manner to let the horse understand that the time for maximum effort, for getting to the winning post as fast as possible, has arrived. If we cannot look the public in the eye and say that, then there is no future for racing. Hope is on the horizon in that the BHA has just taken on a new leader who is supposed to be a wise man of action. Let's hope that he is, because wise action is required to repair the damage which the BHA has been causing in recent weeks.

Damage was also caused by Ascot's ill-advised decision yesterday to stigmatize men who bought tickets to the 'Premier Enclosure' (ie the members') and chose not to wear a collar and tie. There was actually method in Ascot's madness. The idea was that the collar-and-tie thing is being phased in gradually, with yesterday, the first time it was applied, seeing it waived in practice as a bedding-in concession. Ascot clearly should have told everyone when they bought the tickets or entered the racecourse, but the decision was taken that as people entered the members' from Tattersalls', they would be told that in future their attire (if applicable) would not be acceptable. Obviously racegoers wander in and out of the members' throughout the afternoon, so it seemed a good idea that one's badge would be marked when one was told, so that the gatemen wouldn't need to annoy people by giving them the same lecture ten times in one afternoon. In retrospect, Ascot clearly went about things the wrong way. The world and his wife have now told them that and they don't need to be told any more. They have been roundly castigated and they have admitted their guilt unreservedly and are going well beyond the call of duty in making amends. Good on 'em. They have made one error of judgement (and, as I say, an error which did contain method in its madness) and now they have apologised and put it right. A regrettable incident, but one which has merely confirmed that Ascot is a racecourse which is genuinely trying to get things right.

Compare and contrast, though, with Cheltenham. A couple of weeks ago the Racing Post carried a long, reasoned and detailed letter from a long-standing regular Cheltenham racegoer outlining why New Year's Day there had been akin to a holiday in Fawlty Towers. It was embarrassing just reading it. The man was very reasoned, made no threats of future boycotts, but just outlined why things had been so dreadful. I have read no explanation from Cheltenham, no declaration of intention that the mistakes should not be repeated and no condemnation of Cheltenham's failures. It's as if this debacle never happened. The litany of incompetence and substandard service described therein made for far worse reading than reports of Ascot's solitary error, but it seems as if nobody minds. Ascot must be looking at Cheltenham's charmed life with envy - while poor Anthony Knott must be scratching his head. I was at Wincanton yesterday but unfortunately didn't see this wonderful little show. Apparently Anthony Knott was so excited when his horse won that he jumped on board behind the jockey as the horse was walking back into the winner's enclosure. Obviously the great god Health And Safety wouldn't like this, so Anthony Knott has been hit with a 100-pound fine. Honestly! Wouldn't a reprimand have sufficed? The BHA sets off down a path which is endangering the whole future of the sport, Ascot can irritate hundreds of racegoers while re-igniting the fires of all the 'racing's in a time-warp' critics, and Cheltenham can put on a feature meeting where the standards of service are bad enough to alienate thousands - and there is no sign of a reprimand, let alone a 'bringing the sport into disrepute' charge, for any of them. But Anthony Knott jumps onto the back of his own horse, which serves only to bring a few smiles to a few faces, and so cops a fine.

Still, I suppose that the hundred pounds will help to pay for the forthcoming Spirit Son Betfair enquiry which racing's police will presumably be about to undertake. In short, Spirit Son was one of the favourites for the Champion Hurdle. He galloped on Thursday. Some time afterwards his price began to drift on Betfair. By mid-morning on Saturday he had gone from 8/1 to 25/1, at which point his trainer Nicky Henderson announced that he had picked up a leg problem which would almost certainly rule him out of the Champion Hurdle. Nicky Henderson was, of course, under no obligation to make details of the horse's injury public immediately - in fact, he would have been wrong to publicise it until after he had informed the horse's owner. However, obviously someone (presumably neither Henderson or the owner) decided to make a sneaky buck and lay the horse on Betfair while they knew of the injury while the wider public didn't. Nicky Henderson presumably has done nothing wrong other than failing to control his staff (or, probably, just one member of it). And that's no disgrace, as the Teofilo thing told us that even Jim Bolger can't do that - and if he can't, then nobody can. However, all this has achieved is, presumably, to kick-start yet another of these interminably expensive security department investigations in which scores of expensively-employed ex-coppers will be scouring Betfair's records to identify the layer and then trying to find the connection between him and whichever lad let the cat out of the bag. And, in these straitened times, racing needs that like a hole in the head.

Anyway, that's been the weekend in our little corner of the world. Paul Bittar - welcome to the Madhouse! To return to sanity, our trip to Wincanton was pleasant enough. The wind was very strong, but fortunately not quite strong enough to bring racing to a halt, even if the main stand was closed off and two hurdles were omitted. The first race was run in bright sunshine (pictured) but in such windy conditions that didn't last for long, and conditions became progressively gloomier as more and more clouds sped our way. However, amazingly it didn't rain, it wasn't cold, and it was great to be racing as late as 4.25 (obviously, in winter the farther south one goes and the farther west, the later dusk will arrive, hence Wincanton being a good place to hold a late race) which was a nice sign that we are heading towards spring, as it would have been pitch black at such a time a month ago. Anyway, Frankie (pictured) ran a nice race. He travelled well for much of the race (mind you, it was very slowly-run, so they all did) before finding himself not fast enough up the straight when the tempo increased. However, he still ran quite well to finish 8th of 18, which was pleasing. For a 33/1 shot that represented a good run, so I'd imagine that we came home happier than did the connections of the favourite It's A Gimme, who finished second. Mind you, that horse still ran well and would probably have won but for being ridden too conservatively in a slowly-run race - and the fact that on form he should have started around 1/3 but actually went off at 5/6 suggests that J P McManus won't have lost too many bets on him yesterday anyway.