Problems are brewing...
 

I like the part where Manley considers jockeys employees and says that they need a pay raise. Dont we all!! Sponsoring harmful legislation and then saying that they will withdraw support for it if the industry addresses their problems seems like blackmail to me.

http://www.bloodhorse.com/talkinhorses/DM040507.asp

The riders do not have a united front and cannot seem to figure out how to help themselves thus I can't understand how they expect others to help them. Their self-serving approach, along with a general disdain for everyone else involved in this industry, is not going to help them.

Isn't everyone in the game self-serving though?...Is it blackmail, sure, but good faith bargaining doesn't exist anymore.

To a certain extent but others aren't asking for help the way the riders seem to be.

i disagree with his contention that a jockey is an employee. who employs him? isn't he a contractor, and self-employed?
but if they can 'prove' that jockeys are employees, then someone else has to pay all the workmens comp ins. and then an injured jock would be covered by that, and there goes the need for the disabled jockey fund.

While I admit to following the jockeys guild stuff with only passing interest, shouldn't this really say it all? I didn't even need to get to the interview to know it was going to be bad.

Sports agent, real estate developer, rare coin expert and skilled negotiator, Dwight Manley was named in July 2006 the National Manager of the Jockeys' Guild, a union representing more than 1,100 of the nation's horse racing jockeys.

Well, if they are employees then they have no rights whatsoever to advertising dollars they may receive. This, of course, gets to the heart of the matter, which is that they want things both ways. They want the benefits of being a private contractor and the benefits of being an employee.

Benefits only.

And a weight break, don't forget that.

But do not pro football players and such get to make commercials endorsing products for a fee? I do believe they are employees of the owner of the football team they play for.
A solution I think would be to just put all jockeys under contract for owners like they do in Europe( where by the way standard losing jock mount no matter the purse is no less than 100.00) , then the owners could mandate what they can and cant do and they would be insured and protected.
Sure the owner without alot of money and good horses would get the bottum rung riders but then again they would only have to insure 1 or 2 jocks and they would be their employees. Racing is very diffirent from any other industry and its hard to find solutions when everyone has a "we against them" attitude , I do agree that the jockeys approach the horseman in a combative way and until they adjust their attitude it is most likely the jocks wont get any help at all.
Racetracks and horseman do have an obligation to make sure that riders have the help they need when they get in accidents on horseback otherwise they open themselves up to lawsuits and to be honest I wouldnt step a foot into the stirrup unless I knew I would be covered by accident insurance.
There are still racetracks that dont mandate the trainers have workmans comp. and how they get away with this I have know idea.

The jockeys are also free to appear in advertisements. I am talking about them wearing advertisements during races.

Universal Health Care Coverage would fix this problem. I can really see both sides here but who would employ the jocks? Would they be state employees? Employees of the owners. Employees of the trainers? If they were employeed by either of these people then they cannot choose who they ride and when. It would be a logistic mess. The racing industry really needs to come together as a group and work as a group. The sport is so seperated and that is the biggest part of the problem in my mind.

You have got to be joking if you think the "fair" thing to do is to have the owners foot the bill. We are definitely not the ones making the money. The last study I ready indicated that only 7% of owners even made money. To me jockeys are independent contractors, it is not the owners fault they get swindeled by the guild. The jockeys have to accept some responsibility here.

To say that its ok for the owners with lower caliber horses get the lower jockeys.......preposterious

I understand that but , racetracks and owners and stallion farms can use jockeys images to promote and sell whatever they want , jockeys get no compensation for this , its called madia rights and it is what the jockeys sign away every year to get on track accident insurance from racetracks. They could solve this problem by removing the jockey from a horses back when they advertise a horse at stallion that just won the breeders cup or any other races they use to promote with ,just use a computer and remove the jocks image from on the horses back.

Or, those jockeys that are lucky enough to ride the kind of horses that appear in breeder's ads could simply refuse to ride these horses.

The jockeys have a preposterous sense of entitlement in a game where they are close to the only involved parties making any money.

Maybe Morty can wear advertisements....you know, for Nodoz.

But what about the jocks who are not in the Guild who are getting the shaft because everyone thinks the Guild speaks for all riders? I rode races for 13 years and was never in the Guild , got called a scab and was shunned by my fellow riders when I chose to ride in 1991 when they all went on strike. I didnt say the owners should foot the bill , I just presented a solution to the problem , and by the way most trainers foot the bill for workmans comp. if they choose to pass that on to their owners , well then that is their choice.
Tony Black in Pa. tried to form a Union for jockeys that didnt want to be in the Guild and he found that there wasnt one Teamsters Union that would accept them. You know it gets kinda old that people think that jocks should just ride for the fun of it , that when they get hurt thru no fault of their own well that is just tough luck , and they should pay to heal themselves . True this game wouldnt go on without the owners but the same can be said for the men and women who risk life and limb everyday .Yes nobody is forced to ride races , but people would sure have a hard time betting on horses who just ran around the track freely.

You call 35 % off the top of someones paycheck and another 2o% to the government "only ones making money". How about when a persons horse flips over backwards and busts the tree in your 400.00 saddle and you foot the bill for a new one. We can hash this out all day , I will never change my mind that racetracks and horseman have an obligation to provide riders with unlimited accident insurance while on the job.

What " jockeys " are giving 35% of their paychecks to whom ( and you can't mean their agents because that is part of the cost of doing business....and they get 25-30% anyway ). As for the taxes they pay to the government....we all pay those so spare me that cost.

You are worried about a $400 saddle....................That horse that flipped and had to be put down just cost me 50K !!!

How many has that happened to that u own ? I have had horse flip in the gate and bust my tree on the tail gate and the horse didnt die. Had horses make the gap and go over the rail and bust my tree and they didnt die.

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.