Ban The Cyclists!

P

pepsimax

At the Start
Joined
Apr 4, 2004
Messages
73
Location
London
Although it may seem that I am not ashamed about this, I really am...
Not last friday, but the Friday before I was take the birthday card to my friend's house as I wouldn't see him before my holiday and it was his birthday. As I was crossing the road, I heard a gasp and was knocked down. I was hit by a bicycle...how embarrassing! I apoligised even though I am sure it was her fault but her bike was broken and she was also on the ground so I felt slightly bad and then I wandered off.
Anyway, my foot was badly cut and my jeans were ripped, my jeans! It's so heard to find jeans that fit me and these were my favourite pair! I posted the card and on the way home I saw my friend (who the card was for) and he gave me a lift home on his bike., which I had to think twice about getting on. :)

Ok. well what I just wrote has nothing to do with the rest of my story, just background info...I went on holiday with my bad foot and it became infected. The bone is chipped and I had to have an injection today...it was over a week ago! Ooh and I nearly walked into a seven year old girl on a bike today, I heard the chain on her bike, had a quick flashback and woke up from my day dream :D


This is possibly the most boring thread ever started...and I apoligise for the title but I was trying to grab someones attention. Merlin always seems to get people to read his threads by putting the title in caps...maybe this is the start of a new trend...

xxx
 
As I was crossing the road, I heard a gasp and was knocked down. I was hit by a bicycle
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Ooh and I nearly walked into a seven year old girl on a bike today, I heard the chain on her bike, had a quick flashback and woke up from my day dream
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I think normal practice is to look before stepping on to a road. Try it, you never know it might help ;)
 
The seven year old was on the pavement. Is no where safe? :) and I did look left and right before stepping into the road :P
 
Thanks Merlin and PDJ and thank you Stav for that wonderful advice. I actually thought that you lot would take the mick...I am actually, somewhat, disappointed... :)
 
Originally posted by pepsimax@Aug 3 2005, 11:01 PM
Thanks Merlin and PDJ and thank you Stav for that wonderful advice. I actually thought that you lot would take the mick...I am actually, somewhat, disappointed... :)
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don't worry pepsi that will come later.................. :P :lol: :lol:
 
Well Stav has started and I am expecting sarcasm from the likes of Mr. Hartigan, Phil Waters, Ardross and PDJ...
 
Originally posted by pepsimax@Aug 3 2005, 09:36 PM
Although it may seem that I am not ashamed about this, I really am...
Not last friday, but the Friday before I was take the birthday card to my friend's house as I wouldn't see him before my holiday and it was his birthday. As I was crossing the road, I heard a gasp and was knocked down. I was hit by a bicycle...how embarrassing! I apoligised even though I am sure it was her fault but her bike was broken and she was also on the ground so I felt slightly bad and then I wandered off.
Anyway, my foot was badly cut and my jeans were ripped, my jeans! It's so heard to find jeans that fit me and these were my favourite pair! I posted the card and on the way home I saw my friend (who the card was for) and he gave me a lift home on his bike., which I had to think twice about getting on. :)

Ok. well what I just wrote has nothing to do with the rest of my story, just background info...I went on holiday with my bad foot and it became infected. The bone is chipped and I had to have an injection today...it was over a week ago! Ooh and I nearly walked into a seven year old girl on a bike today, I heard the chain on her bike, had a quick flashback and woke up from my day dream :D


This is possibly the most boring thread ever started...and I apoligise for the title but I was trying to grab someones attention. Merlin always seems to get people to read his threads by putting the title in caps...maybe this is the start of a new trend...

xxx
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Let me see if I have this right.

You crossed the road without looking and were hit by a cyclist.

The bike was broken.

Your ripped jeans were of more concern to you than your badly cut foot.

You have difficulty finding jeans to fit you.

And not long afterwards you walked in front of another bike.

I hope you're not looking for sympathy.

(Was the first cyclist hurt at all?)

Why ban the cyclists?

I don't follow your logic.
 
Hope the foot gets better soon, Max. It's a lot more of a nightmare than people imagine to break bones in your foot - I broke 4 metatarsals some years back & was in plaster for weeks until that too became badly infected & my GP had to saw the cast off in the surgery - it left one hell of a mess on his carpet!! The foot still isn't right now, around 8 years later, it still throbs every now & then & is still very swollen but mainly due to the tissue damage.
 
Originally posted by Desert Orchid@Aug 4 2005, 08:11 AM

Let me see if I have this right.

You crossed the road without looking and were hit by a cyclist.

The bike was broken.

Your ripped jeans were of more concern to you than your badly cut foot.

You have difficulty finding jeans to fit you.

And not long afterwards you walked in front of another bike.

I hope you're not looking for sympathy.

(Was the first cyclist hurt at all?)

Why ban the cyclists?

I don't follow your logic.
Click to expand...
:what:

No, I did look as I crossed the road and the woman hit me from behind. That was over a week ago and yesterday I almost walked into a seven year old on a bike.
Of course I was more worried about my jeans, I didn't think my foot was that bad and they were my favourite pair...

I'm 16 years old, you're not supposed to be able to follow my logic, it doesn't make any sense :rolleyes:

Oh and the cyclist wasn't hurt, well I don't think she was. She walked her bike home though... :shy:
 
Originally posted by an capall@Aug 4 2005, 12:45 PM
Who did you kick?
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:lol: :lol: :lol:

No-one, honest!! Although I should've kicked the clumsy yak of a horse that fell on top of me in the box, resulting in said broken bones....
 
Seriously, and also seriously off-topic! - Shadz, you sustained quite a few nasty and quite serious injuries which have left you with some permanent damage. I realize that you're far from alone in this, and that many stable staff must leave their work with far worse disabilities.

I know you said you were on what you thought was good pay when you did finally quit, but as you know, I've been involved in a bit of a dogfight about the starting stalls handlers' furore over on FF, where I've been trying hard to make the point that their annual pay of between £20,000 - £22,000 for a few moments of handling horses, per race, is nowhere near the time spent daily handling all kinds of nags, per stable staff.

The pay scales look entirely inequitable to me. The stalls handlers aren't asked to get on some squirly little beast for the first time, to muck out a career kicker and biter, to ride out a third lot who's known to tank off and try his best to kill his rider, and so on. On top of all that, the unending grind of hauling wheelbarrowsful of muck to the heap, bedding up, bedding down, clean out the water buckets, haul the water buckets, clean down totally mud-sloshed horses in winter in freezing cold, and on and on. And get torrents of abuse from your trainer if you do something slightly wrong: like fall off and let his new colt get away. :angry: Even your 'better' pay does not compare with what are a few minutes' of actual handling per meeting for the handlers. Okay, I don't say necessarily lower the pay of stalls handlers (though I personally think the money's there because RaceTech can afford it, where individual small courses like Brighton couldn't), but I do look at what they get askance when compared to what stable staff get.

Just my opinion, of course, but when I look at how you've been 'treated' by the work you did, and the lasting problems that will probably only get worse as you get older (arthritis, premature rheumatism being typical for such work!), I think there's a heck of a long way to go in redressing the balance of danger money. What do you and other ex-stable work forumites think?
 
That strikes me as a very good salary for the job they do. Do they get expenses for travelling from meeting to meeting?
 
You are right Kri, but from what I believe, wages are much better nowadays - Newmarket wages in particular are supposed to be very good. When you look at the bare salaries stable staff get the wages are pretty poor, but once you add to that free (or heavily subsidised) accomodation, pool money (the quarterly payment of x% [I think it's 2%] of the yard's accumulated prize money) and owners 'presents', then the wages don't look quite so bad. I'm guessing* (based on what I used to get paid 8 years ago, what I know others get/got paid then and now) that is is not uncommon for a decent lad to be on a gross wage of around £18k a year (plus the bonuses from pool money, owners' money & travelling expenses) plus the equivalent of roughly an extra £4k - £5k per year in accomodation, which wouldn't make a stable lad's wage much different to that of the handlers, who don't get accomodation chucked in.

[* - calculations based on a weekly gross wage of £350 a week (I know of quite a few yards several years ago that were paying that kind of level) = £18200 plus an estimation of rent levels being somewhere around the £400 a month mark (certainly you'd be lucky to find somewhere in the area I come from, even in racing communities where you could get away with paying as little as £400pcm) = £4800. This is not taking into account bonuses or ppol money. I'd be interested to see if those that are still working in racing think this is fairly close to the mark.]

Stable staff are unfortunately never going to be large earners, one of the reasons that I didn't ever intend to do any more than enjoy a few years working in racing. However, there are also many jobs that pay similar levels or less - secretarial work at a lower level, receptionist work, nurses, veterinary nurses are just some. I also found that I had far more disposable income then (and I was running & paying for a car) than I have had since, even though I earn a lot more (on paper) than I did then! I was very lucky in that I could just enjoy working for a few years in racing, gaining the experience, meeting many, many fantastic people & generally enjoying life & being young - all whilst knowing that I had A-levels & could go on & start a career earning more money when I wanted to. I also used my time in racing to gain invaluable secretarial and PA skills, thus opening more doors for me in later life.

As for the injuries - having always been around horses, you get used to them after the first few! As I got older & more experienced the injuries became fewer as I was more able to handle the thoroughbreds I was riding. To be honest, it hasn't really bothreed me that much as although I am beset by aches & pains, dodgy joints & all the rest of it & am fairly sure I will be plagued by arthritis & rheumatism as I get older (certainly as arthritis & rheumatoid arthritis are rife in my family) it hasn't ever put me off. I love riding horses, I always have, & I am aware of the associated risks. I could just as easily die tomorrow in a car crash as kill myself on a horse which is the way I have always looked at it. In fact, nowadays I bother myself about it even less with the atrocities that are going on - the poor 29 year old British lad (Keri Davies) who perished in the Sharm-el-Sheikh bombings along with his girlfriend was a colleague of mine at Stan James; it is incidents like that that tend to bring home the awareness of your own mortality. Strangely enough, I also feel far more in control and comfortable when on a horse that is going loopy - much more so than if I was in a car, train or plane that went wrong - I can't help but feel that I have a far greater chance of regaining control of the situation on a horse! Obviously I can't speak for everyone but I'd suspect that many people who work in raincg & deal with horses on a daily basis see things in a similar way. I'd be interested to hear the take of the others on here that work daily with horses - fudge, Love Everlasting, Trudij, Spoons, chrisbeekracing (apologies if I've left anyone out - very rusty memory!).

Max - many apologies for this going so off topic....
offtopic.gif
:shy: :shy:
 
Frankly , I can't see how the fact that stable staff are badly paid is an excuse for extending that to stalls handlers , whch Arena propose to do .
 
To continue the thread hijack echoing SL & Krizons comments about stable staff - two things that irk me.

After a big race the owner gets a lovely trophy often plus bottle of bubbly, the trainer gets a slightly smaller version & often bubbly and the jockey gets a smaller version still - what does the lad/lass get - a sodding photo frame - every time! Why can't they get rewarded with a decent momento? When I was in the States the groom who looked after the Kentucky Derby winner that year got a brand new car.

My second rant concerns racecourse refreshment. Jockeys get provided with an abundance of sandwiches, cakes, chips etc - all free. Owners & Trainers get complimentary tea/coffee, cakes etc often free lunches if meeting is sponsored. Lads get .......... free tea & coffee if you are lucky - the canteen which although they are improving, serve a main meal at a cost usually of between £3.50 and £5 (and most of it awful quality). Most canteens shut half an hour after the last so if you are leading up in the last, forget getting anything else as the staff who run them have packed up. In addition the canteens (supposedly for STABLE staff) are usually packed full of stalls handlers, ambulance staff, etc., so it is difficult to get to sit down to eat your meal.

OK - rant over - Pepsi - yes cyclists should be banned - I took my driving test years ago in Oxford and it was a nightmare - they were like ants appearing from everywhere!
 
Ardross: the point I was making was that the jockeys have come blasting out about stalls handlers' pay, when they've never so much as lifted an eyebrow to support the poor pay (well, it certainly was for eons) of stable staff, the very people who ensure they've got any living at all. Never mind no owners or no trainers - if there's no stable staff, you can have all the Classics-aimed racehorses you like, but you ain't gonna get 'em to the track!

You're obviously privy to how much Arena proposes to pay their own stalls handlers. How much is it?

As you can clearly see from what I've put above, I wasn't discussing the proposal to employ their own handlers (by Arena). I was comparing the inherent dangers in handling a few horses for a few minutes, to those of handling them all day/every day, and the disparities in annual incomes of the RaceTech handlers vs. stable staff.

Jinnyj: hold on! Owners and trainers don't get any freebies from Arena Leisure's courses - they pay a quid for a small cuppa! The stable canteen at Lingfield is supposed to be out-of-bounds to everyone except stable staff and box drivers, but I've seen the impoverished Dave Nevison in there, chomping down on a big plate of grub for a couple of quid, as well as several well-heeled trainers, and some raceday staff who consider themselves beyond the norm (they're not, but no-one stopped them), plus JC employees.

I think the best prez for stable staff who turn out the winner is a bung of cash, to be honest, a % of 1st prize money. All those damn photo frames or glass paperweights - the only thing is, you can cut down on buying your family Christmas prezzies by wrapping them up and sending them on!
 
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