In Indian racing, the whip is treated with more reverence than a temple bell. To punters, it is the magic wand that guarantees victory. To stewards, it is the measuring stick of effort. To many jockeys, it is their passport to safety—because heaven forbid you lose a close finish without brandishing it like a cavalry sword.

The irony? The whip is not a miracle device. Once a horse is blowing hard and running on fumes, no amount of flailing can make it sprout an extra gear. As seasoned riders admit: “If he’s spent, he’s spent. No whip in the world can make him sprout wings.”

Yet our officials cling to their contradictions. In one infamous case at a premier jurisdiction, a jockey was actually pulled up for failing to use the whip—in a race where whips weren’t even allowed! The Stipes, it seemed, simply wanted to score a point against a trainer whose pattern of running horses always confounded them, a trainer who somehow managed to stay one step ahead of the rule book. So, they tried to invent a fault where none existed. Somewhere, Franz Kafka must have chuckled, while the jockey stood there wondering if he is being pulled up for not using an invisible whip.

History is full of such whip-worship. A champion jockey once lost a Derby by a whisker at Bangalore, only for the horse’s breeder to insist he’d bet everything on a re-run—with “more whipping” guaranteeing victory. Sadly, racing doesn’t offer a replay button. The myth of “one more smack and he’d have won” lives on, unburdened by science or common sense.

Across the globe, the debate is equally absurd. Ryan Moore diplomatically praises tighter rules, Jim Crowley fumes about bans he “didn’t know he’d earned,” Frankie Dettori serves his suspensions with a shrug, and in America, riders like Junior Alvarado contest whip penalties like courtroom dramas. Meanwhile, no winning horse has ever been disqualified for whip breaches—though medication violations routinely strip results. One day, perhaps, even that sacred cow will fall.

Back home, Indian jockeys live in a perpetual Catch-22. Whip too much, and you’re labelled cruel. Whip too little, and you’re accused of not trying. Many sensible riders know hands, heels, and rhythm are often enough—but fear of the stewards drives them to flog anyway, lest someone say they didn’t give their “best.”

As Suraj Narredu put it: “In England, they are excessively strict. A jockey is expected to whip at interval of three strides. You will get punished if you hit on the second stride. It’s hard to realise unless of course you get used to it.”

The contradictions don’t end there. At the close of the Mumbai season, star jockey Akshay Kumar was slapped with a ten-race-day ban from using the whip for his fourth whip offence. On paper, it sounded straightforward: ten Mumbai race days. In reality, it was anything but.

With no centralised rules in India and no all-India count of whip offences, the penalty bizarrely applied across the country. Since Mumbai had shut shop and other centres were running depleted calendars, Akshay’s “ten race days” translated into more than two months of suspension and, effectively, a professional dead-end.

The collateral damage? Owners who had retained him as their stable jockey suddenly found themselves without their No.1 rider. And Akshay himself discovered an unspoken truth of Indian racing: no matter your stature, no one wants to leg up a jockey riding without a whip. It is seen as career suicide.

As Suraj Narredu bluntly put it: “I believe this rule is absurd when there is no central licensing of jockeys and common rules followed at all centres.”

For Indian racegoers used to whip counts being more suggestion than scripture, the idea of timing strikes to the stride sounds almost comical. Yet it neatly underlines the absurdity of the global whip debate: the same action that makes you a hero in one country can make you a villain in another.

So the myth survives. In the eyes of too many, effort is measured not by horsemanship or judgement but by how often the stick was raised. Until that changes, the whip will remain less a tool of correction and more a theatre prop, worshipped for powers it never really had.

The whip is not a magic wand that works wonders.