All risks of your chosen profession. As far as I know no horses asked to be racing.

25 % to the agent is the common fee and 10 percent to the valet , and if you ride for 35 $ jock mount like at most cheap tracks that is alot of money. Point is moot, jockeys should have unlimited accident insurance no matter what , Im done with this subject , the view will always be jockeys are greedy little bastards and that they dont deserve anything . Well Ill tell you something my life was worth way more than the 22 dollar jock mount that I rode for sometimes and if people cant see that then there is something is something wrong with them.

Nope and nobody asked you to be an owner either .

Honu, have you seen Mike Smith ride? He should pay us to watch him.

Do you run them "uninsured"?

NC Tony

Would you feel any better about the matter had the horse DID die? :confused:

A jockey needs an agent to get him or her mounts and needs a valet to handle his or her tack. These are costs of doing business. As is insurance. They want the good part of being a private contractor and not the bad. Perhaps if they had some unity within their ranks, and didn't continually hire the wrong people to represent them, they would be in a better position. As it is, they just want, and seem unwilling to give anything in return. The fact is there was a simple, and fair, plan last year in Kentucky which they rejected because they had to contribute one third, and that third would have been weighted more heavily to the riders winning more races, and thus would have been exceedingly fair to the lesser riders. But, they were unwilling to contribute at all. Why should others help those who refuse to help themselves?

I am not an owner. I am a bettor and thus am subject to the rampant incompetency of the riding community. Perhaps the riders would like to contribute to my insurance policy against hopelessly inept rides that cost me tens of thousands of dollars annually. I will be more than happy to contribute MORE to them ( as I already pay them by funding the purses from which they derive their living ) if they would help insure me against ghastly inept rides.

Key words--- Mike Smith, Jose Santos, Robbie Albarado, Ramon Dominguez----they will be sending their kids to college on our dime in spite of Robbie going into the parking lot on the turn in every race he rides....Maybe they will get into Rutgers though I doubt it.

No but that was your foundation for your statement .

Yep people screw up , trainers do , owners do and you as the gamble do too.
You fund peoples school tuitions everyday when you pay taxes and the crack head mom or dad on the street corner so dont give me that crap.

And horseplayers are already paying the jockeys.

Well, if you've been at this a while, the rides should even out.

Though their representation is awful, jockeys are at risk and it's not unreasonable to expect them to at least try to get tracks or other industry interests to contribute. Why would you expect them not to try to get a bigger piece of the pie if they can?

If you own a home and have someone over to fix your roof you either: a, require them to have their own insurance coverage; or, b, cover their risk yourself. How is a racetrack any different? If they wanted, they could deny jockeys from riding unless they showed evidence of insurance. Edgar Prado could probably furnish it. I'm not so sure Reymundo Fuentes could.

Saw some of your show. Nicely done...

Sent2Stud
 

I agree about the rides basically evening out over time, though to be honest, the better your opinion the more subject to the vagaries of the game you are, as the better your opinion the more frequently your horses will be at least contenders.

I do agree about there right to coverage, and certainly about their right to get whatever they can, but it does anger me when it carries over to ANY increase in takeout to cover them. I feel in the right that we, as bettors, contribute AT LEAST enough, and it hurts me and angers me when anyone is trying to get more from us. It seems like the easiest route groups attempt to take as we have little to no representation.

Thanks about the show.

I think the thing that I am most worried about is them using a headline seeking politician (Ed Whitfield) to open up a can of worms through legislation that may lead to the interuption of simulcasting or worse. That will affect everyone in a really negative fashion. Using politicians to fight your battles is a very dangerous thing.
Plus someone please inform Mr. Manley that the jockeys in some jurisdictions have gotten a huge pay raise in the form of higher purses, just like the rest of us.
Dont forget that the tracks covered the Jockeys for years until the Guild screwed it up. They let the coverage lapse because they were going to blackmail the industry according to Dr. G.
Manley is playing a similar tune just with a less dramatics.

Excellent points.

I never made the statement originallly, someone else did. I just find the logic here very hard to understand. You mentioned something about the owner's horse dying. You did or the other guy did, I guess the other guy did. What's the pt? Dead or alive someone has to pay expenses.

I understand your position and I realize you have an emotional stake involved here. Which is fine, I would just like to keep the thread on a more logical basis.

For example the pt. about paying for your tack, this actually works against the argument that jocks are employees. If they are paying for their own equipment this suggests they are indep. contractors.

There are several factors the IRS looks at in cases such as these, including do they get paid hourly and do they report to a certain location like an office? In the case of jocks, it seems to me that much of the time they maybe doing things that count as work for several employers at once...

For example, a jock diets to make weight, who is he workign for? Well everybody who he is riding for on that day.

Or he studies the condition of the track (something that applies for all his mounts), or goes to get equipment, or he drives to the track, all in the normal day. How do you divide that up among several employers? Seems to me he is basically at the track and working for a number of employers at the same time.

SOunds like an independent contractor.

Now there was another pt. about benefits and the guild and all that. I think it would be in their best interest if they were to be a certified bargaining unit like the NFL players association and then a lot of these issues could be negotiated out and they wouldnt have this ongoing argument about who should pay for what. They wouldnt have to argue about indep. contractor status if the bargaining unit and owners had agreed to it.

OF course owners being rich folks arent likely to bargain as a unit either. So there is a problem there.

You made a pt. about there is no doubt that the owners should pay for medical. Why are you so stuck on this position? It is really an emotional stand you are taking here, logically economically it could be paid for either way. It probably wouldnt change things no matter which way it is done, the jock income probably wouldnt change either way. So why the emotional attahcment to this issue?

Sure do agree about the takeout. I'll sign that petition.

Seems to me the racing revenues have been screwed up since simulcasting took off. All the tracks thought this was 'found' money and wouldn't hurt on-track atttendance and handle. It's pretty ridiculous that the host track running the races and incurring the expenses gets only 20% or so of these dollars.

On most Saturdays, the Dog track in West Palm draws 3,000 people. They're all betting Aqueduct and Gulfstream. They have to be wagering $250k on those two tracks alone just at the Dog track.

National health care is long overdue in this country.

agree 100% the guild is what went wrong.