THOROUGHBRED RACING : Jockeys Say They Will Walk Out Jan. 1 Unless Insurance Improved

The threat of a walkout by the nation’s jockeys on Jan. 1 is real. At a two-day meeting this week in Las Vegas, some of the most prominent members of the Jockeys’ Guild indicated that they are prepared to lead a work stoppage because of the group’s dissatisfaction with an accident- and health-insurance plan that has been offered by the tracks.

“I can’t afford to ride without insurance,” said Pat Day, who leads the country in purses this year with $14.4 million. “If this situation is not resolved, I don’t ride.”

The guild, which has about 1,000 members and represents 95% of the jockeys in the United States, has an insurance plan funded by the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, a trade group that represents about half of the country’s tracks and most of the major tracks. The insurance policy runs out Dec. 31, and after months of negotiating, the jockeys are not happy with the offer the tracks have made.

The first year of the new coverage would cost the tracks $5 million in premiums, but they don’t want to pay more than a 3% annual increase in premiums over 1993 and 1994.

The jockeys, who are in a high-risk business--more than 40 of their members are paraplegics or quadriplegics--say that the 3% cap is unrealistic and that they can’t afford to pay the difference without the guild going broke.

In the race to the year-end deadline, the guild has written or oral agreements from only 13 tracks to privately extend the insurance coverage.

“We’ve been taken advantage of for years,” said Chris McCarron, the California jockey who is second to Day on this year’s money list.

McCarron and Gary Stevens indicated in Las Vegas that they would support a walkout. In 1988, when most of the New York jockeys refused to ride during a disagreement over mount fees, McCarron supported them by not riding Precisionist, one of his favorite horses, in a $500,000 race at Aqueduct.

Should McCarron, Stevens and their followers decide not to ride on Jan. 1, the newly opened Santa Anita season would be dramatically affected.

On Thursday, Bob Strub, the chief executive officer at Santa Anita and a former president of the TRA, didn’t have much hope that negotiations between the tracks and the jockeys would go any further.

“They’re not accepting our proposal, and we’re not going to accept theirs,” Strub said. “We’re at a stalemate. It’s hard to say what will happen between now and when we open (Dec. 26). We’ll be watching what happens.”

R.D. Hubbard, the president of Hollywood Park, wears two hats in this dispute. Hollywood Park, the Woodlands in Kansas and Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico, tracks that Hubbard controls, are all members of the TRA. Hubbard also is a member of the Jockeys’ Guild advisory council.

“There is a large group of tracks saying the same thing (about insurance) that you guys are saying,” Hubbard told the jockeys in Las Vegas. “I hope you can work out some kind of a compromise. It’s a volatile situation on both sides.”

Santa Anita was a charter member of the TRA in 1942, and Strub indicates that his track’s loyalty to the organization won’t flag now. “We’re standing behind the TRA and the offer it’s made,” Strub said.

Another part of this battle involves television and radio rights. For 20 years, the tracks have told the jockeys that their insurance coverage has been paid in exchange for the riders waiving their broadcast rights. Now the TRA, under its president, Tom Meeker of Churchill Downs, is saying that the jockeys do not have broadcast rights.

“For the jockeys to say they have these rights is ridiculous,” Strub said. “Players in other sports don’t have any broadcast rights. They sign them away when they join the teams, and it should be no different in racing. The jockeys don’t work for the tracks, they work for the horsemen (owners and trainers). If they don’t like the plan we’re paying for, they should pay for a plan themselves, or have the horsemen fund a plan.”

Compared to team sports, rights fees from television are minimal. TV networks pay millions of dollars for rights to the Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup races, but otherwise money that racing derives from TV coverage is virtually nonexistent.

“Baseball players get $55 million a year for their pension plan from television rights,” McCarron said.

John Giovanni, the national manager of the Jockeys’ Guild, set the tone for this week’s meeting when he told his membership: “If you don’t stick together on this, we’ll be dining on the crumbs that the TRA throws us from their banquet table. The TRA has dictated to us. They haven’t been negotiating in good faith.”

At the request of the Federation of California Racing Assns., Giovanni attended a meeting at Hollywood Park Thursday.

“We still have some time on this, and I’m optimistic it will be worked out,” said Cliff Goodrich, the Santa Anita president who attended the meeting. “For me, it’s not surprising to find the two sides being in the position they are on this. We’re going to keep talking.”

Jerry Bailey, one of the top New York jockeys, is president of the guild.

“I’m not riding at a track on Jan. 1 that doesn’t have an insurance plan,” Bailey said.

Hialeah, not a member of the TRA, is the largest of the 13 tracks that have indicated to the jockeys that they will implement private insurance plans by Jan. 1. When it was suggested to McCarron that other large tracks could put pressure on the TRA by paying for their own insurance plans, he said:

“The pressure isn’t going to come from the tracks that much. It’s going to come from the riders.”

Horse Racing Notes

Forty Niner Days, in his last start before he is sold at auction at Del Mar next month, is the 5-2 favorite against eight horses in the $250,000 Bay Meadows Handicap Saturday, a race that will be simulcast at Hollywood Park. Forty Niner Days, who will be ridden by Corey Nakatani, has earned about $650,000. He’s the co-high weight Saturday with Batshoof, both at 116 pounds. . . . Frost Free and Chris McCarron, who teamed to win the Vernon O. Underwood Stakes at Hollywood Park last year, will try to repeat Saturday. Other sprinters running in the six-furlong race are Valiant Pete, Ivyleaguer, Lanner, Cardmania, Thirty Slews, Past Prince, Media Plan and Individualist.

Injured while finishing last in Sunday’s Native Diver Handicap, Stalwart Charger has undergone surgery on his right knee. . . . Premium Price ran 12 times before she broke her maiden, then the 3-year-old filly ran five more times before she posted victory No. 2, in the feature at Hollywood on Thursday. . . . McCarron, who has flu, missed riding for the second day in a row. . . . The Hollywood stewards have suspended jockey Frank Alvarado for five days, starting Sunday.

Santa Anita has declared a $1.36 annual dividend for 1991, down from $2.08. The company explained that the drop is because funds are needed for non-racing acquisitions in the real estate division. . . . Pat Valenzuela has been reinstated as a member of the Jockeys’ Guild. Drug-related problems caused the group to expel him last year. . . . Jerry Bailey has been named the winner of Santa Anita’s annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. Bailey finished first in a national vote of jockeys.