Risen Star Owners to Give Jockey a Bonus After All

The dispute between the owners of Risen Star and Eddie Delahoussaye ended Tuesday when the owners agreed to pay the jockey the $100,000 he said he deserved from the colt’s million-dollar Triple Crown bonus.

Terry Lipham, Delahoussaye’s agent, said that the jockey would also be paid his expenses for riding Risen Star in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, which Delahoussaye said amounted to about $12,000.

The agreement between Delahoussaye and Risen Star’s owners, Louie Roussel and Ronnie Lamarque, was reached with the help of John Giovanni, the managing director of the Jockeys’ Guild. Delahoussaye had indicated earlier that he would take Roussel and Lamarque to court if he didn’t receive a 10% share of Risen Star’s bonus.

The settlement amounted to an overnight turnaround for Roussel, who also trains Risen Star. On Monday, Roussel had said that he wouldn’t pay Delahoussaye the $100,000 because they hadn’t had even an oral agreement and he characterized the jockey as “greedy.”

Roussel, who is also a lawyer, may have agreed to the payment because it has been standard practice in racing for jockeys to share in bonus money won by horses. Last year, when the $1-million Triple Crown bonus was offered for the first time, Craig Perret, the rider of Bet Twice, received $100,000 because the colt had accumulated the most points in the series by finishing second in both the Derby and Preakness and winning the Belmont.

This year, Risen Star ran third in the Derby before winning the Preakness and the Belmont. Delahoussaye’s 10% share of the purses--$76,742--from those three races was never in dispute.

“I was misinformed how money from the Triple Crown series was disbursed,” Delahoussaye said in a statement Tuesday. “The rules state that the bonus is paid to the owners. Since there was no contract in my case, even though I clearly believe I deserve the 10% of the bonus, I can now understand how this misunderstanding happened.”

In New York, Roussel said: “Eddie’s statement speaks for itself. We had no agreement going into the Belmont, and I had already said that. Last year, Craig Perret conducted himself like a gentleman when he asked Bet Twice’s owner both before the Preakness and before the Belmont about sharing in the bonus. But in all honesty, I was real busy between the Preakness and the Belmont, getting the horse ready for the race.”

In Boston, Giovanni said: “No matter what you call the $1 million, it was money earned by the horse and it’s basically purse money. I’ve never seen an owner or a $2 bettor win a race without a jockey on the horse.

“One of the problems you have in racing is that the rules are different from state to state, and the Triple Crown is run in three states. You can’t even get the states to agree on how much weight an apprentice jockey is supposed to carry. Because a bonus is the same as a purse, I think the riders are covered, but for the future we’re going to look into it just to make sure.”

Whether Delahoussaye will ride Risen Star again was left unclear. Roussel is more concerned about the horse’s soundness than about who his jockey might be.

A persistent ankle problem in the right foreleg has kept Risen Star out of training since the Belmont a month ago, and the horse’s racing future won’t be known until late July. There are strong indications that Risen Star will be retired and begin a stud career next year.