Thursday, 10 September 2009

Sydney and Brisbane jockeys have joined Victorian riders in strike action over Australia’s controversial whip rules.

Jockeys riding at Hawkesbury on Thursday voted to withdraw their services after the fourth race, causing the Sydney provincial meeting to be abandoned.

The Ipswich meeting met the same fate after jockeys met following race five.
Ballarat jockeys called a stop-work meeting after the third race following the Australian Racing Board’s decision to leave new whip rules introduced on August 1 unchanged.

They were united in their decision not to ride for the remainder of the meeting.

Leading jockeys Damien Oliver and Corey Brown addressed Thursday’s ARB meeting to put their case for a change to the new rules.

Jockeys wanted the ARB to allow horses to be hit in an unrestricted manner over the last 100 metres of a race.