My father trained at lower-level tracks in the 1970's and 1980's, he told me "about 8 or 9 out of the 40 jocks" would use a buzzer. He said most of them were funny about how they'd carry it.
He had a "machine horse" who he thought benefited from it...he said the jockey who rode his machine horse would have the buzzer handed to him by a pony girl in the post parade.
The craziest buzzer story he had: One time, before a race, the field was loaded into the gate. Once everyone was in, they had basically a sting setup where they asked riders to dismount so they could search them.
One of the jockeys who was carrying a buzzer, instead of dismounting, he zapped his horse, and the horse busted through the gate with him. He was able to get rid of the buzzer, but at the risk of great danger to himself.
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