It was well known to be coming, but I did not hear anyone complaining, I made some remarks along those lines on an other forum.

It has nothing to do with the welfare of horses and everything with placating the noisy PC animal rights crowd.
First they want to stop jump races, then the whip, and after that, watch out, they go for gallops.

I'm not being alarmist because it's never going to happen, but given the chance, I bet you, that's what they want and giving in to them on anything, is just encouraging them.
Some horses are lazy they will not perform without some force.
As someone said, it's wide open to abuse and how can you even prove it?
After all the jock only followed rules!

No profanities please. Moderator.