It's an emotive question with no definitive answer. In short, the whip is an issue that provides a perfect excuse to climb aboard a soapbox and start bawling.

And the thing is that every roar can be valid, no matter how loudly extreme.

Shouts in favour of motivated skilful jockeys putting their hearts and souls into a driving finish can be countered with heartfelt vitriol about desperate, heartless little men brutally hacking at dumb, fear-crazed animals.

Yells of "success" as the horses pass the post can be shouted down with "at what price."

The whip and the correct way to use it is a mainly British issue at the moment. A more laissez faire attitude currently prevails in Ireland but, make no mistake, in terms of the whip Ireland follows Britain. Contrast the near savage stick-flailing that ran riot here just 15 years ago to the number of whip suspensions that now feature in almost all race reports.

One senior stipendiary steward in Britain forecasts that in the current climate use of the whip to make horses go faster will be banned in Britain in five years. If that happens, how quickly before the authorities here follow suit.

Which is my cue to shakily clamber on to the soapbox and ask: should an unwillingness to smack a racehorse on the behind allow an entire sport to be smacked in the face.

Such statements usually send the "Disgusteds of Dalkey" into a lather about how uncivilised we can be in this country about animals in our charge. And they have a point - but not about modern horse racing in these islands.

How we treat animals is as accurate a sign as any of how humanity's veneer of civilisation is holding out but excessive use of a whip on half a ton of racehorse by a 10 st man on his back is not a valid criterion.

Try instead modern farming methods used on poultry or pig farms where the unfortunate beasts often never see daylight in the whole of their miserable lives and are housed in spaces so small they can hardly move. Of course, in the animal sexiness chart, pigs are more Cliff Richard than Oasis and we do like our bacon and eggs in the morning.

Which in a ranting, roundabout way brings us to the central conflict of the whip debate that has rumbled almost continuously for the past 20 years but which is now coming to a peak. It's a conflict between appearance and substance which appearance is currently winning with only minimal pressure being applied.

The changes that anti-whip campaigners like Sir Peter O'Sullevan have long fought for have had hugely beneficial effects. Horrific and unsightly beatings of exhausted horses have almost completely disappeared. For that a debt is owed but recently the whip guidelines laid down by the Jockey Club, in consultation with the RSPCA, have resulted in many controversial bans on jockeys at the top of their profession.

Tony McCoy has been the most high-profile recent victim of the rules but practically no one has escaped the Jockey Club's preoccupation with how racing looks. No race illustrated that more than last August's Group One Juddmonte Stakes at York.

Three horses divided by just short heads after a thrilling final furlong battle in a top-class race yet the three riders involved, Pat Eddery, Frankie Dettori and Kieren Fallon, all received whip suspensions.

Yes, they exceeded the guidelines but can anyone truly say they found the finish offensive. The three horses kept responding, three of the world's top riders exhibited all their polish and there was no shoulder-high strikes or forearm slashing that so disfigured the game in the 1970s. A race was there to be won and the winning of it was thrilling.

Yet now the Jockey Club have decided that if a rider breaks the rules in a "prestige" race the jockey will automatically get a 10-day ban. `Prestige' races after all are the ones on TV and the Jockey Club is illustrating once again where its main priority lies.

Aside from the fact that any jockey worth his salt will happily swap a 10-day ban for a Gold Cup or a Derby, or that a jockey riding in a lowly seller 30 minutes earlier is suddenly supposed to metamorphose into a different sort of rider in a Group One, the rule is surely unworkable. But then so many others are too and in Britain there is a total lack of flexibility in applying them.

A top jockey using his stick in a polished and rhythmic style cannot reasonably be expected to stop using it if the horse underneath him is responding to it. A Pat Eddery or a Richard Dunwoody in such a mode is hardly offensive to the television public.

What can be offensive are other riders who show scant regard for the television public by deliberately failing to put their horses into races with a winning chance. And in that regard substance definitely is winning over appearances.

As for the whip, it is a fact that 99 per cent of racehorses will run faster for a thump. Some need far more than one to ignite the potential in their phlegmatic souls. That is a racing reality. Surely tinkering with that reality has gone far enough.