Day 9

It is still very cold which means limited training once again today so I decided to rant a bit on some current topics concerning horseracing in general. Obviously being a horseman I may have a different take on some things which I suppose is the objective of this blog in the first place. However I was not born into the game and spent my younger years as a fan, graduated from the University of Arizona's Racetrack Industry Program, spent several years working in track management as an assistant racing secretary and worked my way up the training ladder from hotwalker. Therefore I suppose I may have a more well-rounded view of the racing world than most horsemen.

We will start on an old topic made new again, jockey fees! This is a link from the latest issue of the Louisville Courier-Journal about a proposed "work" stoppage. Are these guys kidding? First of all, half of the jockeys in the room at Turfway aren't members of the Jockeys Guild and are under no obligation to do anything. Secondly the vast majority of riders at Turfway leave after the meet ends to ride elsewhere so why would they want to draw a line in the sand here? Thirdly Guild management has picked the worst possible time to fight over money as Turfway has been giving away less money in purses lately than anytime in recent memory, not to mention the entire world economy is in flux. Handle is shrinking, owners and trainers are leaving the sport for economic reasons yet jockeys deserve a raise? I happen to agree that an increase in mount fee is probably warranted. $60 which would be a 25% raise is a number that has been thrown around as a solution. Yet we have heard that the jockeys would only accept that number as a "temporary" increase until further negotiations are conducted. So a 25% increase isn't enough? Try selling that one to the masses guys. It always humors me when the guild mentions any negotiations whereby the horseman get more purse money as a justification to raise mount fees as though ONLY horseman benefit with a raise. I suppose the fact that the jockeys winning share also increases with a raise in purses also seems to be beyond them.

Another topic that has gotten a lot of play recently is track surfaces in both Kentucky and California. While there is no doubt that the industry should be working to make track surfaces, dirt, synthetic and grass, as safe as humanly possible these public disputes will make things worse, not better. Counting breakdowns and using them as the sole determination if a tracks is okay or not is foolhardy. Breakdowns are usually caused by a number of factors combining with a horrible result. Track surface is only one factor and in many cases has to nothing to do with a horse breaking down. I find it interesting that we have banned steroids and toe grabs with much fanfare yet the breakdown rates are either the same or have increased which has led to the finger pointing at the surfaces. I have been of the opinion that toe grabs are hardly a cause of breakdowns and in some cases are beneficial especially on sloppy tracks. The study that the industry types have pinned their hopes on as the "smoking gun" of evidence that toe grabs are evil was severely flawed and within the study itself the Doctors at Cal-Davis even stated that they were making no recommendations with the study and that much more research was needed. The group of horses included in that study was made up of 90% of horses that wore toe grabs and 10% that did not. They also did not take into consideration any other factors such as surface (ironic) or racing class. At the time of the study almost every horse in training in California was wearing toe grabs which makes it really hard to get an accurate sample size for both sides. Perhaps the vast majority of horses without toe grabs in the study were slow horses that consistently went off at long odds and didn't race very long before they were taken out of training? Is that a far fetched assumption? As for steroids, the vast majority of horses were treated in accordance with the suggested usage levels and as such weren't a significant factor in breakdowns. The people in charge of the sport want you to believe that they are making all these positive steps in the area of safety. Yet they fail to realize that unfortunately horses will always breakdown in some number as they are flesh and blood and the more you allow the focus to be on track surfaces and have racing commissions "demanding" answers that don't exist, the sport will fail in its PR fight.