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Racing Victoria explored the use a proposed race series that would ban the whip for encouragement purposes as part of ongoing research into the use of the whip in thoroughbred racing in Australia.

Racing Australia is currently conducting a review into the whip to ascertain whether there should be a change to the rule. 

Currently the whip can only be used five time prior to the 100m mark before unlimited use to the winning post. 

Many of the leading jurisdictions overseas have a limit on the number of strikes during a race, between five and eight, in total. 

RV chief executive Giles Thompson said the state's controlling body had been gathering data on the current whip rules. 

"The research we have done, that people love to take potshots at, it was conducted for purpose," Thompson told RSN927. 

"It was not of a bunch of greenie tree-huggers, it was our customers that were in that research (and) we have done research into what is happening overseas. 

"The third area is you should trial stuff and see what happens. 

"It is in that context that we thought a trial of whip free for encouragement purposes was worth discussing with stakeholders but it became clear that many in the industry were not ready for that. 

"The current work (with RA) is about the current rule and the any further restrictions." 

Thompson said the current whip rule was not fit for purpose and needs to move to world's best practice which he said was limiting the number of strikes per race 

He said the Racing Australia process was a consolidation of state-based thoughts and insights, adding that to suggest RV not gather new insights, or information, was a misunderstanding of what RA stands for. 

"It's really important that Racing Australia's processes, whatever they come up with, is thorough and takes all things into account," Thompson said. 

"It may not like what the research says, it may not like what other information comes to light over the coming months, but it has to take account of it. 

"It has to be a genuine process taking into account all pieces of information."