WHIP OR SPUR.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 772, 22 December 1904, Page 6

WHIP OR SPUR.

A number of rather shrewd judges are of opinion that the use of ihe spur, I except in certain exceptional cases, is | totally unnecessary, and there is no doubt that a good deal can be said in favour of the argument. That there are times when it is absolutely necessary to make free use of the spur in a race it is not difficult to believe Occasionally you drop across a galloper who will do nothing but what he is forced to do. In a case like this, there is do help for it; the whip, and the spurs, too, must be brought into play if you are to get the best results from the sluggard. But at the same time, it is scarcely any exaggeration to say that for every one horse that will stand a “ gruelling ” there are nine who act the better for not feeling either the steel or the whipcord at all. Indeed, so far as flat racing is concerned, the spur at least could, in the majority of cases, be profitably left at home altogether. Even in jumping events, although something can < e said in their favour, on the authority of so fine a horseman as Arthur Nightingale, the rider is just as well without them, and he acts on the belief by invariably using dummies—spurs with n rowels. There are perhaps no finer horst men in the world than the Cossacks. >et they rely entirely on the whip. It is very gratifying to lovers of the hors. to find the unnecessary cruel jockeys »re in a very great minority. Writing on this subject the “Sporting and Dramatic News ” says that after the last Melbourne Cup the signs of punishmeio were remarkably few. There were i.o whip marks at all, and it was only in a couple of cases that slight spur scores were noticeable. And this, despite that the battle was a severe one throughout. The horses did their level best without being chopped to pieces, and, as we have said, it is very seldom that a hor h is met with upon whom extreme measures are necessary. There is even a wav of getting a “slug” along SO' imes without making him look as if i t * ad an argument with a barbed wire fence To be able to slash, bash with the whip is by no means the first and last (f the art of riding Boys learning to ride should have this lesson impressed upon them. Both the whip and the spurs are for use, not abuse, and it will be found that a good idea is to take these things away fiom youngsters who don’t understand what th*y are rightly for A little k:ddy w.'th a big whip might in his ignorance do a lot of unnecessary damage. He would be better employed looking after his horsb’s head.