LEXINGTON, Ky. — Not that long ago, a transplant from Atlanta told me that back home her family owned horses in Georgia. She said her mother was coming to Lexington for a visit, so I suggested that they go to Keeneland to take in the races.

The next time I saw her I asked if her mother had a good time at Keeneland.

“To be honest,” she said, “we didn’t like the way they whipped the horses.”

I thought of that impression last week when HISA announced that it had fined and suspended jockey Junior Alvarado for his winning ride on Sovereignty in Kentucky Derby 151 back on May 3.

Alvarado was fined $62,000 (20% of his winning share) plus suspended from riding in Kentucky on May 29 and 30 for using the riding crop — more commonly known as the whip — eight times during the win, more than the allowed maximum of six times.

Many industry insiders have been outraged by the penalty, seeing it as HISA overreach, that using the crop on horses is a regular practice that doesn’t injure the horse and is often used to keep a horse from avoiding trouble.

“The stupidity of this sport is endless,” prominent owner Mike Repole posted on X after the penalties against Alvarado were announced.

That reaction illustrates the all too common disconnect between racing regulars and the public at large.

The most important aspect of the sport to the casual fan is not so much the winning and losing as the safety of the horse, a subject under far more scrutiny now.

It’s one of the reasons HISA (Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority) was passed into law in the first place. Its intent was to make the sport safer for the horses, both on and off the track, and the riders.

Did Alvarado injure Sovereignty? No. Is Alvarado a reckless and dangerous rider? No. Is it likely that the 38-year-old jockey lost count of how many times he had used the crop on the Derby winner coming down the stretch at Churchill Downs? Yes.

“I couldn’t keep track of that,” Alvarado told the BloodHorse, the publication that first reported that the jockey appeared to exceed the maximum number. “It’s such a big race, there’s so much that you’ve got on your mind.

“I wasn’t galloping by 10 (lengths ahead). When the extra whip happened, I was right next to the favorite (Journalism) and I needed to do what I needed to do at the time. After (watching the replay), I saw I went over, but I had no time to think about that. I just wanted to win the biggest race in America.”

Still, Alvarado was fined 20% of the purse, instead of the normal 10%, because this was the second time in 180 days the jockey had violated the rule, according to HISA.

It wasn’t just HISA. Several people that I’ve talked to since the Derby said they noticed that Alvarado was hitting Sovereignty repeatedly down the stretch.

On the one hand, it’s yet another controversy involving the Kentucky Derby, joining Maximum Security being disqualified as winner of the 2019 Kentucky Derby, and Medina Spirit testing positive for betamethasone after winning the 2021 Kentucky Derby, which was followed by a three-year Churchill Downs ban of trainer Bob Baffert.

It’s also another reason for critics to point the finger at HISA, which as expected has been met with plenty of resistance.

Fun fact: The six-strike rule was actually implemented in 2021 in consultation with the Kentucky Jockey Guild. HISA did not come to being until 2022.

On the other hand, as Paulick Report publisher Ray Paulick pointed out, “Because of the mainstream media attention to this, I would suggest the general public might for the first time learn that horse racing now has strict rules on the whip and enforces those rules — even in the sport’s biggest race. That’s a good thing, isn’t it.”

I think so. For horse racing to survive, it needs to think not just about how it sees itself, but how others see it, as well.

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