OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A growing dispute between racing horse owners and jockeys is casting doubt on whether races at Remington Park can fully continue as scheduled, as a group of jockeys has threatened to boycott until a new deal is reached.At the heart of the conflict is how jockeys are paid—with the group representing them demanding higher compensation for races they do not win—and horse owners resisting those changes, warning the costs could further strain already cash-strapped owners and trainers.Joe Lucas, who consults the Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma (TRAO), said races will go on even if some jockeys refuse to participate.“We are going to run the races,” Lucas said. “The track chose to go ahead and run the races with short fields, knowing we were going to be short.”
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TRAO represents the people who own and train the horses you see running in races. Right now, they’re in a dispute with another group called the Jockeys’ Guild, which represents jockeys.It all has to do with how jockeys get paid.Right now, if they win a race or place second or third, the jockey gets to keep a certain percentage of the cash prize that comes with it.But if they don’t win or place, the horse’s owners pay jockeys what’s called a “losing mount fee.”“Their current losing mount fee is $75 with no increase in 15 years,” Jockeys’ Guild President Terry Meyocks said.He said jockeys don’t get to keep the whole $75 for themselves, since part of it goes to insurance in case a jockey gets injured and some of it also covers new federal regulatory fees.His group wants the losing mount fee to go up to $100 and no longer require regulatory fees get taken out of it.“They haven’t had a pay raise in 15 years,” Meyocks said.But Lucas said the fact that jockeys even get paid at all when they lose is already an exception.“Jockeys are not employees. They are not on a salary. Jockeys are independent contractors, just like trainers are trainers,” Lucas said. “If [a trainer] leads a horse over there and that horse does not hit one, two, three, four… he doesn’t get a losing trainer fee. Jockeys are the only ones that get paid out there for losing.”He also said owners have to pay those new federal regulatory fees too, taking money out of their pockets.
And for owners, when their horses don’t win, they’re out all the money they put into it.
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“Horse racing is really not set up to take care of, you know, really the losing part of it,” Lucas said.With the two sides still at a standstill, a handful of jockeys set to race at Remington Park this week said they wouldn’t be showing up if there was no deal by 10 a.m. Tuesday.
With that deadline passing, it put Thursday’s scheduled races in serious doubt…