Should a horse be stripped of victory because its jockey breached the whip rules—even when stewards cannot determine whether those extra strikes affected the result?
Champion Queensland trainer Tony Gollan believes the answer is no, declaring the concept of whip-related protests “absurd” after Boomtown Boss survived a challenge to his victory in the Group 3 Aurie’s Star Handicap at Flemington.
Gollan calls for whip protests to be scrapped
Gollan was forced into the stewards’ room following Boomtown Boss’ narrow victory over Royal Insignia in the 1200-metre feature on August 1.
Royal Insignia’s connections protested against the result over Daniel Moor’s excessive use of the whip aboard the winner.
While stewards agreed Moor had breached the rules, they were not satisfied that the offence had changed the outcome and dismissed the protest.
Gollan, who recently secured his 13th consecutive Brisbane trainers’ premiership, believes whip protests ask stewards to calculate something that cannot be reliably measured.
FREE FORM GUIDE: View our tips or find your own winners via our form guide here
Speaking to Racenet, Gollan said the concept of a whip protest was impossible to apply fairly.
“The whole idea of a protest is to try to quantify the amount of ground that was lost by a horse, or perceived to be lost,” Gollan said.
“It’s up to the video cameras to look at it and the stewards to work things out from there.
“If the stewards believe the margin that a horse lost due to being inconvenienced by another horse was greater than the winning margin, then sure, uphold it.
“But there is absolutely no way under the whip rules that you can quantify that.
“It is just absurd really, because you can’t quantify what has happened or what difference it has made.”
Boomtown Boss survives Flemington drama
Boomtown Boss won the Group 3 Aurie’s Star Handicap by a neck, defeating Royal Insignia with Arkansaw Kid finishing third.
The victory gave Gollan his second success in the race, 15 years after Temple Of Boom won the same event in 2011.
The drama did not end at the winning post, however, with the protest forcing Gollan and the rival connections to argue their cases before stewards.
After reviewing the footage, stewards ruled there was insufficient evidence to conclude Moor’s whip use had provided the winning margin. The result was allowed to stand, but Moor was handed a 10-meeting suspension and fined $3,500.
“The whip protest itself is rubbish,” Gollan said while discussing the penalty.
His criticism was directed at the protest mechanism rather than the broader restrictions governing whip use.
Gollan supports rules—but not protests
Although Gollan wants whip protests removed, he acknowledged that tighter regulations have helped change the appearance of Australian racing.
“Do I think the whip rules are perfect? No, I don’t,” he said.
“But I do think, as a whole, if you look at our races now compared to 10 or 20 years ago, it is a totally different vision to watch.
“The whip rules have played a huge part in the way the jockeys are riding and the way they are using the whip on their horses.
“Deterrents for jockeys who over-whip horses are already in place.
“And we can all understand there is human error with jockeys whipping a horse.”
Gollan’s position is that jockeys should continue to face suspensions and fines for breaches, but the horse, its owners and its backers should not lose a race unless stewards can conclusively establish that the offence influenced the outcome.
One alternative would be the automatic disqualification of any horse whose jockey exceeds the permitted whip limit. Gollan does not support that approach either, arguing it is unlikely to be accepted by the wider racing industry.
Successful whip protests remain extremely rare
The history of such challenges supports Gollan’s argument about the difficulty of proving an advantage.
Only two whip protests have been upheld in Australian racing, and both involved races initially declared dead heats.
The first occurred at the Sunshine Coast in 2016. The second came at Flemington in December 2022, when stewards lodged a protest against Blake Shinn’s ride on My Yankee Girl following a dead heat with Invincible Caviar.
That result was amended after stewards determined Shinn’s whip use amounted to a serious breach and could have influenced the finish.
Boomtown Boss’ case was different because he had defeated Royal Insignia by a neck. Stewards found Moor had broken the rules, but not that the breach was responsible for overcoming that margin.
That distinction sits at the heart of racing’s whip debate. Punishing a jockey is relatively straightforward; proving precisely how much faster a horse travelled because of an additional strike is considerably more difficult.
For Gollan, the solution is clear: maintain meaningful penalties for jockeys but remove a protest process that requires stewards to measure what may be impossible to quantify.
FREE FORM GUIDE: View our tips or find your own winners via our form guide here
