SYMPOSIUM: Horsemen, jocks at odds on new losing mount fee increase

[Kasept]

Jockeys, horsemen clash on mount fees
By Matt Hegarty

http://www.drf.com/news/article/109435.html

TUCSON, Ariz. - Representatives of jockeys and trainers clashed Tuesday afternoon during a panel presentation at the University of Arizona's Symposium on Racing and Gaming over a model rule that sets minimums for the amount of money owners must pay riders in races.

Representatives of two major horsemen's organizations, the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association and the National Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, said that they strongly objected to Saturday's endorsement by the Association of Racing Commissioners International of the model rule, a vote that was supported by the Jockeys' Guild.

The rule codifies broad matrices of increases in losing mount fees based on the identity of the track and the purses of the race, and it calls for mount fees to be indexed to the government's cost-of-living adjustment used for Social Security payments. Under the model rule, some losing mount fees would increase by 100 percent.

Jeff Johnston, a regional manager for the Jockeys' Guild, said the increases address nearly two decades of stagnation in losing mount fees. Johnston said that jockeys were paid an average of $40 in losing mount fees in 1985 and that mount fees only increased once since then, by $5 in 2001, before the Guild began pushing individual tracks to increase fees last year.

Horsemen's representatives, however, countered that the losing mount fees should be subject to negotiation between a track's jockey colony and its horsemen's group and not set by racing regulators. They also claimed that the cost-of-living adjustment did not properly reflect economic conditions in the racing industry, which started stagnating in inflation-adjusted terms a decade ago and began declining in recent years.

"As newly minted as the model rule is, we seek a repeal of it," said Joe Santanna, president of the National HBPA.

The disagreement between the two groups has largely been played out behind the scenes over the past year, and the public airing of the two sides' grievances reflected the sharp divisions between opponents and supporters. Mike Campbell, president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, said that negotiations between jockeys and horsemen this year over the issue at Arlington Park and Hawthorne dominated relations between the groups for 10 months, with trainers accusing other trainers of being traitors and jockeys threatening walkouts.... MORE