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.