New deal for pro jocks - half pay

krizon

krizon

At the Start
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
16,263
Location
Dahn sarf
Got an email from the ROA announcing a deal made with the PJA (Professional Jockeys' Association) to say that effective January 1, all professional jockeys whose declared rides are withdrawn on the day will receive half their riding fee (which up to now they've lost). The ROA says they hope that this will help them to offset some of the costs involved in them getting to a course, only to find their mount pulled out a bit later, and also to possibly reduce the number of horses declared to run and then pulled out late.

This will trial for a year and then be reviewed.
 
Presumably owners will be getting half their fees back for declaring on good to firm ground and then finding it good to soft 48 hrs later.
 
Agree with that David.

Can't see the owners being too happy - entry fees are up, prize money down and now they're paying for jockeys who don't ride the horses.
 
Hmm, tricky one - owners are entitled to pull out their horses, especially if the track isn't as they wanted/expected or the horse is injured, or they can't get there due to travel problems. On the flip side, Dougie Costello got to Kempton on Tuesday after a 3 hour drive, walked into the weighing room to which the clerk of the scales said "what are you doing here? You're only ride is a NR" Which was news to Costello, who thought he was being wound up at first.
 
Last edited:
That's exactly the sort of scenario I think they feel they either want to stop, or at least help the jock towards his time and expenses, Shadz. I realise it's going to be yet another cost for owners to bear, but the amount of pull-outs on the day, after declaring the night before, are growing all the time. You just look down the decs list and there are SCs all over the shop - "not eaten up" being an uncontestable favourite. How can you argue with that? Since SCs were permitted, it's become all too easy to pull out last minute. I'd go so far as to argue that some of these have been planned all along (gasp!) by the trainer. Now, if he has to pass on some of the jock's costs to the owner, he might think twice about whether horsey really left his Ready Brek or not. And any owner would definitely feel he or she had the right to question Bonzo's recurring habit of not breakfasting when the ground's gone from G to G, F in places.
 
Irish Stamp said:
Can't see the owners being too happy - entry fees are up, prize money down and now they're paying for jockeys who don't ride the horses.
Click to expand...

Plenty of owners quite happily pay for jockeys who don't ride the horses Martin. ;)

In all seriousness, seems a bit daft to me if contact is made between owner/trainer and jockey/jockeys agent. If contact isn't then that's fair enough.

Richard Guest's stable jockey will be the most overpaid man in the country.
 
But you imagine you get halfway from Lingfield to a mile outside Wolverhampton, Gamla (I know, your lucky day!) and your agent mobis to say your horse is pulled out. That's a fair old drive, and God knows where you actually live. It happens so much now that I bet the PJA has been having a good moan to the ROA - although more aptly, it should be the NTF.
 
There was a quid pro quo. In return the PJA have agreed that fees will be frozen at their current level throughout 2011.
 
Back
Top