Whip Rule Change And Use Studies

A governing body has made a major change, as research looks into whip use in equestrian sport.

- Eleanor Jones

MAJOR changes have been made to showjumping whip and spur rules to promote horse welfare — as research has been published looking into the use of such aids.

From January, British Showjumping (BS) riders will only be allowed to use cushion-type whips like those allowed in racing (see box), while changes have also been made to the spurs permitted.

BS said the changes are the result of discussions between officials’ working groups and the national sport committee, who have also looked at rules in other disciplines including racing.

Chief executive Iain Graham said: “As a national governing body of equestrian sport one of our primary objectives is to ensure equine welfare is always paramount and we see the introduction of this rule as a positive way of meeting this.”

The announcement comes as separate studies into whip use have recently been released.

Kirstin Spencer of Writtle University Centre, working with Jane Williams of Hartpury University, evaluated whip use in senior BS competitions from 80cm to 1.25m. Ms Spencer used footage of 285 riders at shows, looking at how many carried and used the whip, and with what force, and what their results were. She used markers to determine the effect use had on horses.

She found 10.5% of riders used the whip, in results presented at the International Society of Equitation Science (ISES) conference in August.

“Interestingly, use of the whip was associated with horses accumulating more faults,” Ms Spencer told H&H.

“You could say that’s because the horse was behaving badly but that calls into question what the whip’s being used for. If it is as punishment, should it be being used like that in the ring?”

Ms Spencer also found a correlation between the greater the force with which the whip was used and higher fault numbers.