Thunder Snow was said to be unharmed by his experience of running third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, in which the severe use of the whip by Christophe Soumillon shocked sections of the audience in Britain.
Saeed bin Suroor, the trainer, said on Monday: “I checked the horse after the race, he looked good, he looked in good form, fresh and happy, like he never had a race, no problem at all.”
Soumillon was not punished by the Churchill Downs stewards after Saturday’s race but the whip rules in Britain suggest he would have been banned for three to four weeks had he made similar use of it here. The rider, a highly successful veteran who generally keeps within the whip rules in Britain and France, appeared to use it 16 times on Thunder Snow and did so at times in a rapid-fire style almost never seen on British tracks these days.
British stewards examine any ride in which a jockey uses a whip more than seven times in a Flat race; using it 16 times would normally lead to a 19-day ban. Additional days can be added if a rider uses the whip with excessive force, without allowing the mount time to respond or without regard to the horse’s stride, the penalties starting at two days in each case. That suggests a total ban of around 25 days for a ride like the one Soumillon gave Thunder Snow.
There would also be a fine, likely to be significantly higher than the £6,550 levy imposed on Richard Johnson after getting a seven-day ban in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Soumillon’s whip use was described on Twitter as “absolutely brutal” by the trainer and former jockey Brendan Powell, while the former British champion jockey Richard Hughes also criticised the Belgian during an appearance on Racing UK.
Bin Suroor declined to criticise his jockey. “Christophe tried to get the best result in the race. He’s a world champion jockey. I have a lot of respect for him. It’s a big meeting, all the jockeys are trying to get a good result.”
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