In Sweden, A Seamless Transition Whip-Less Racing
When Sweden introduced a ban on the whip at the start of the 2022 racing season, race official Dennis Madsen was pretty sure what would happen, which was nothing. The races would still be competitive, betting would not be affected and there would be no issues when it came to security.
Five months into the racing season in Sweden, Madsen, the head of horse racing at the Swedish Horse Racing Authority, says that he has been right.
“There has been no negative impact on racing at all after we removed the whip,” he said.
Along with Denmark and Norway, Sweden is one of three Scandinavian countries where jockeys are no longer allowed to use the whip to encourage a horse to run faster. They are still allowed to carry them in a race in the event that the whip may be needed for safety reasons.
Norway, Sweden and Denmark form a circuit that attracts the same jockeys, trainers and horses and the three countries have worked to have uniform rules.
The whip has been banned in Norway since 2009. In Sweden, racing authorities have limited the use of the whip over the years, starting by allowing only 10 strokes during the race until that limit was lowered to three. The whip was totally banned in 2-year-old races and in steeplechase races.
The three-stroke rule may have remained for at least a few more years, but the sport faced a crisis last year when harness driver Joakim Lövgrens was suspended for a year, not by race officials but by a local municipality for what was considered excessive use of the whip. “You have deliberately inflicted unnecessary physical and mental suffering on an animal in order to win a competition and money,” said the verdict regarding Lövgren’s.
Around the same time, some jockeys were reported for animal cruelty after the crop left marks on the horses during races. Instead of letting the situation escalate into what could have become a huge problem for the sport, a decision was made to simply ban the whip in Sweden. Racing officials in Denmark made the same decision.
“The civil authorities started taking action against jockeys and drivers,” Madsen said. – We thought it was time to move on. We wanted to be proactive.”
Not that everything has gone perfectly. Because there was a concern that the jockeys would try to take the reins in their hands and use them to slash at the horses, rules were written that appeared to require riders to keep their hands on their horse’s mane or neck at all times. If so, jockeys could not change hands on the reins. The jockeys threatened to strike but we calmed down when the wording of the rule was changed.
Otherwise, Madsen said, the jockeys have adapted.
“They have accepted the rules,” he said. “There have been no complaints. We have only had one race in the whole of Sweden where there has been a problem. A rider tapped his horse on the shoulder with the whip and received a one-day suspension. Our jockeys have accepted the rules and follow the rules.”
Madsen said not only have there been no safety issues in the races, but horses seem to be running straighter courses and there have been fewer problems with interference.
“The trustees have experienced less disruption so far this year,” he said. “We rarely see dangerous situations or dangerous riding in Scandinavia anymore. In terms of the smaller disruptions, we have seen around 10% less this year compared to 2021, although it would be premature to draw any definitive conclusions at this stage.”
When it came to how punters would react to races run without whips, the Swedish Horse Racing Authority had reason to believe that the handle would not suffer. Before the ban was introduced, the Swedish tot surveyed the players and asked if they noticed cases where horses are treated badly in the context of competitions. Thirty percent answered yes. Of that 30%, 91% said the cause was too hard or too frequent use of the whip.
Madsen said that the overall grip on Swedish thoroughbred racing has increased this year.
“We haven’t seen any negative impact on betting,” he said.
Madsen admits that even he once believed that the whip was an essential and necessary part of horse racing.
“That was the culture at the time,” Madsen said. “I was told that the horse responded to the whip and I could see no problem with that. That was more than 20, 30 years ago. We all get smarter with age. I can see now that thoroughbred racing can do without the whip. The competitions are as exciting as ever. There was a time when people beat their children. You would never see that today.”
And his message to other countries where the whip is still allowed?
“It’s less disruption,” he said. “We’ve had international jockeys come in and they haven’t complained. The main thing is that the same trainer is still dominating. The same jockeys are dominating. There’s been no real change for the stakeholders. In your country, if you took away the whip, the same jockeys, Irad Ortiz Jr., Flavien Prat, still be on top. Racing here has shown that removing the whip is not a problem at all.”