Officials said that Cooper had hit his mount 23 times – 14 after jumping the last flight of hurdles and 12 of them without giving the horse time to respond. Cooper, 34, had not ridden a winner for 4,316 days prior to this success and went on to complete a double later that day.
“I didn’t think I was hard on him,” he said. “It’s the way I ride. I wasn’t 't intentionally connecting, but the whip was making contact, and they’ve viewed it that way.”
Cooper had exceeded the limit of eight hits with the whip over jumps by a staggering 15, yet he shrugged off the shame of being so heavily punished and went to Fontwell Park, where he rode Mortimers Cross to victory in a handicap chase, over three and a quarter miles.
This time Cooper only waved his whip at the horse in the finish, and when he crossed the line he threw it in the air, apparently in a gesture of protest.
“I’m still a bit annoyed, but that’s racing, and rules are rules. I’m not a person who uses the whip much and I’ve never been banned before. I showed I didn’t need to use it [the whip] there, but I threw my whip away and I imagine I’ll be fined for that too,” he said.
There is no doubt Cooper has a very untidy style in the saddle, but professional Robert Winston, who was banned for a total of 22 days for using the whip with excessive frequency at Southwell, is the complete opposite.
The stewards took a dim view of Winston’s ride on the Mark Tompkins-trained Zenarinda, who finished second in a one-mile handicap. The jockey described the ban as 'a joke,’ adding: “I’m absolutely disgusted. I’ll have to think about an appeal.”
The third whip ban imposed was a five-day suspension imposed on conditional jockey Lee Edwards, who landed the first race at Fontwell aboard the heavily-backed Dirty Deal.
