Racing: Jockeys go out on strike

Jockeys at Ballarat, Hawkesbury and Ipswich refused to continue riding at yesterday's meetings and will consider further industrial action over the controversial whip rules.

Stopwork meetings took place at venues in Victoria, NSW and Queensland after the Australian Racing Board (ARB) rejected submissions for changes to the rules at its meeting in Sydney yesterday.

Representatives from all facets of the industry put forward the submission to have the rule altered to allow jockeys to use their discretion over how many times they hit horses in the last 100m of a race as long as they were in contention.

Under the rule brought in on August 1, riders are restricted in the number of times they can use the whip inside the final 200m.

Along with the new rule, the ARB introduced padded whips to lessen the impact on horses.

Speaking on behalf of jockeys at Ballarat, in Victoria, Glen Boss said they had no alternative.

"The owners' associations, the trainers' association, the breeding association, everyone in the industry are supporting the jockeys. Unfortunately, we've been pushed into a corner and we've had to react," Boss told TVN.

"We certainly didn't want it to come to this but as a jockeys' association we have got to show our strength.

"This is a rule that's been placed upon us which we rejected from the get-go.

"We've tried to go to the ARB to explain the situation that we just need to tweak. We're not asking for a lot. We are asking for 100m where we can do our best and we've got the support of everyone in the industry."

Corey Brown and Damien Oliver, who have both fallen foul of the rule in the past week, along with former Federal Government Primary Industries Minister Peter McGauran, attended the ARB meeting.

The Australian Jockeys' Association (AJA) issued a statement yesterday saying the ARB was out of touch with the rest of the industry.

"With its decision today to ignore the call of all stakeholders to make a minor variation to the rules relating to the whip, the ARB has succeeded in unleashing a great bitterness and division between stakeholders and administrators," the AJA said.

"It shows the ARB is completely out of touch with its constituents."

"I've never known the industry to be so united on an issue," McGauran told the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday.

He is now the chief executive officer of Thoroughbred Breeders Australia.

"Usually the industry is divided and often at each other's throats [but] I've yet to find anyone who doesn't believe a compromise is needed to maintain confidence in the integrity of the sport," he said.

- AAP