AT times you would be hard pressed to find a premier worldwide sport where the rules for its participants differ so much across the spectrum as in horse racing.

Everywhere else, offside is offside, a double fault is a double fault, a below-the-belt punch is the same all over the world.

The rules surrounding the use of the whip are one of the main areas of contradiction in racing and, with the international element of top flat jockeys riding in different continents, it’s a pity more harmony can’t be established.

Last weekend two different jurisdictions dealt with a whip offence with different sanctions compared to what would occur in Britain and Ireland.

After winning on Dubawi Legend in a Group 3 at Baden-Baden, Ross Coakley suffered a 23-day ban for use of the whip and the loss of 50% of his prize money. Must have been a serious offence, you would think.

Yet, the winning ride looked as close to any normal one, actively keeping a horse up to his work, as you would see in Britain and Ireland every day.

Coakley had familiarised himself with the local rules. However, the stewards determined he had used his whip nine times – four over the permitted level.

He was unaware that any contact between the whip and the horse, no matter how slight or unintentional, would also count.

The stewards’ slow motion footage used to capture the times the whip touched the horse came up with five additional occasions, triggering the ban.

He had used the whip four times in orthodox fashion, this put him according to officials, four over the limit. No one familiar with Britain, Irish or French racing – never mind America – could have seen anything justifying a 23-day whip ban.

An appeal, if not accepted in writing, would be risky taking to account the cost and inconvenience of flying to Koln.

Also last weekend, in the US at Saratoga, the rider of the David Duggan-trained Drafted, fifth in Saturday’s Grade 1 Forego, was also found to have broken the whip rules.

Here, the horse was disqualified from purse earnings for the race but… his jockey Luis Rodriguez-Castro was only fined $500 and suspended three days for misuse of the whip.

According to the Daily Racing Form report, Rodriguez-Castro hit Drafted 10 times with the whip, four more strikes than are allowed under rules by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority [HISA]. The disqualification costs the connections $26,000.

Of course in Britain or Ireland, nothing would affect the horse’s placing or the owner’s prize money, and a 23-day ban would create an outcry.

Back in 2019, and that infamous National Hunt Chase, the most servere ban was to Rob James, for a total of 19 days.

It seems a rather crazy element to racing that such differences exist and a more unified method of assessment, at least in Europe is not in existence.

More ado about Ado

THERE are many times when less is more. Public persistence can work two ways, even when a perceived injustice has occurred.

Keeping the name in the headlines can often draw more attention and not really change an opinion.

The Ado McGuinness team were annoyed at some of the fallout and the detail, or in this case lack of it, in some areas of the IHRB’s press release detailing the events that led to the trainer being fined €750 for failing to comply with a “reasonable request or instruction from a racing official” over an incident involving post-race testing of Laugh A Minute after the Rockingham Handicap.

The trainer was quoted in the print media and the matter was again debated on the Nick Luck podcast up to last Tuesday, with contributions from McGuinness and Jane Mangan, to clarify all that did, or should have, taken place during racing at the Curragh.

There seemed to be four or five points of note that needed to be clarified and perhaps noted for the future by both IHRB and trainers or their representatives on track.

It was a fact not clarified in the press release that Laugh A Minute’s pre-race test – and one test not five – had been returned clear.

After the race, off at 3.16pm, by 3.44pm a member of the IHRB veterinary team let Lynn Hillyer know that the horse had not been presented for the required post-race test.

The trainer did not inform his staff of the need, and IHRB staff had not gone looking for the horse in time.

That the trainer’s truck tachograph showed the truck only left the Curragh at 4.10pm must be considered accidental – the intention was to leave shortly after 3.31pm when the horses left the yard. The delay was in getting the truck a free exitway.

Neither McGuinness nor the IHRB officials went out of their way to ensure the request made earlier was complied with and that gap in communication created the whole referral. ‘Can do better’ should be the moving-forward lesson.

Better communication could have been made to check, but then at that stage the scene was set as neither trainer nor IHRB officials were expecting the other to look after the reqrired chain of events.

We do need all the relevant results and details in cases where it can have a bearing on a trainer’s reputation, especially when the words ‘drug testing’ and ‘fine’ appear in the same statement.

Geoffrey Riddle@Louchepunter

Love this quote from Steve Asmussen at the weekend.

“I think that’s what makes racing so great - you’re bet on by what you’ve done, but what you’ve done previously doesn’t get it done for you.”