30.4.04

Crops and horse-racing:

There's an interesting article in the NYT about the use of crops in horse racing. Laura Hillenbrand believes that they are overused. I agree that some sort of regulation might be useful, since at some small tracks, it seems that the riders spend the whole time swinging the crop. The British rules sound fairly reasonable to me, though difficult to enforce. Who would decide whether a horse was out of the running?