Jimmie Says | Owners’ pockets matters

Real owners, those who have to bare their banking details to the Jamaica Racing Commission (JRC), ought to start a members-only movement – OPM – Owners’ Pockets Matters, excluding trainers whose occupational licences qualify them as owners.

If there was ever a sucker in the horse-racing industry, owners deserve the annual Dunce Hat of the Year Award. Trainers don’t have to prove they can maintain a racehorse, yet arbitrarily increase their fees at the drop of a hat on those who must show financial statements in order to be licensed as owners.

Thanks to the JRC, this allows trainers to be ‘owners’, who increase fees on real owners to support their ventures as ‘owners’. Hence, real owners end up paying their bill and that of the trainers’ as well.

The next time an owner rushes in glee to sign a trainer’s agreement, he or she should note the only ‘agreement’ is that of the trainer’s fee, which, if not met, could land him or her in ignominy by being placed on the JRC’s publicly published forfeit list.

It is owners’ pockets on which the entire industry revolves.

The promoting company puts on the show, enticing owners to purchase horses from breeders in order to compete for prize money from which it deducts percentages (incentives) and hands to trainers, jockeys, grooms and breeder of the winner. Never mind that the trainer is already paid by the owner to compensate grooms whereas the breeder of the winner, who could have sold that horse 10 years ago, as in the case of 11-year-old HOVER CRAFT, who won last Sunday, collects a percentage mirroring what the owner of the third-place finisher gets to share with jockey, trainer and groom.

Global reach and impact

At the beginning of this year, with the world economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, described as “unprecedented in its global reach and impact”, grooms, without negotiating with either trainers’ association, granted themselves a wage increase in January, $4,200 weekly, per horse, by way of a Track and Pools advertisement.

A month later, the United Racehorse Trainers Association of Jamaica (URTAJ), also by way of an advert, passed on the grooms’ fee increase by advising that the new ‘recommended’ training fee had been increased to $3,000 per horse, daily, moving from $2,650.

Owners’ per-horse bill

Using the average 31-day cycle, in one 2.5”x7.5” advert, URTAJ moved owners’ per-horse bill from $82,150 to $93,000 per month for feed and grass only, hay not included in some cases.

Don’t be fooled by the URTAJ-advert narrative about “every other means of preparing horses” being factored in the increase. ’Every other means of preparing horses’ is either appended to owners’ bills or must be met whenever presented within the month.

Owners also face a dilemma presented by who should be courting them most, the promoter, which should start shifting some of its energies to rescuing racing’s endangered species by staging class-equitable races with a quicker turnaround in distances for no more than seven groups of horses.

The first thing the promoting company needs to do is throw out the model which has it inequitably and unprofitably staging races for 19 categories of horses in a population averaging 1,100 racers.

To simplify the argument for racing neophytes, horses are athletes, just like humans, with varying degrees of athleticism and preferences for different distances, hence a small horse population such as Jamaica’s can’t profitably adopt North America’s ‘condition’ system that blindly sends winners to a higher category, with equal weight, after each victory, regardless of the competition faced when winning.

Internationally, the racing population is a pyramid. The best horses, numbering a few per capita, are at the very pinnacle. The other six groups below are of lesser ability, but greater in numbers, lower down the pyramid.

In calling for a purse increase, URTAJ doesn’t understand that the solution is more profitable races should be staged, which translates to increased opportunities to earn prize money.

The promoter needs to scale its business to seven groups of horses, bar races for two- and three-year-olds, which would result in bigger field sizes at suitable distances, all in a quicker turnaround than the almost two months that owners of blue-collar runners have to sit out while paying trainers.

For feedback, please email: ainsley.walters@gleanerjm.com