Churchill Jockey Boycott

[Silver Charm]

I think you are correct.

Also who qualify\'s for an additional Insurance reimbursement amount, assuming the Tracks started to pick up the tab. Another words how many rides a day, a month does someone have to have to justify their Premium being paid. Should Johnny V have had his Premium paid when he showed up to ride Lady Tak last weekend.

What if 200 no-name riders showed up at the start of the Meet. Does the Track have to cover them too??? I think the Tracks took an All or None approach and decided None was better.

[Mall]

The bad advice HP is wondering about & many jockeys did not even know they were getting, came from Pepperdine Prof Wayne Gertmenian, who used his former friend Chris McCarron to take over the Jockey\'s Guild in 2001. Tracks pay the Guild $2.2 million in unrestricted funds, a large portion of which was used to purchase an excess policy for med bills over $100k when John Giovanni was in charge. My recollection is that because of rate increases the excess policy limits had to be reduced from $500k to $300k, which was a(if not the)major reason McCarron was able to convince a number of jocks to aid his effort to force Giovanni out in favor of \"professional\" mgmt. Not long after Gertmenian took over, the excess policy was dropped altogether, which I\'m guessing is one reason why Gertmenian & McCarron are no longer on speaking terms. Apparently, Gertmenian did not effectively communicate the fact that the excess policy had been dropped, which explains Gary Birzer\'s surprise when he learned in his hospital bed that the Guild no longer provides coverage for the med bills for catastrophic injuries. The obvious questions are what in God\'s name would possess Gertmenian to drop the excess coverage, & what did the Guild do with the $7 million or so it recieved from the tracks since Gertmenian took over. As to the latter question, Gertmenian claims the money was used to build up the Disabled Jockeys\' Endowment Fund, while Ray Paulick of BH has written that the Fund is thought to have been \"depleted.\" Santos\' wife is circulating a petition calling for an independent audit. If there is an audit, my guess is that the jocks will learn that they paid surprisingly high mgmt fees for the opportunity to be treated as guinea pigs in a test of one prof\'s poorly conceived theories re how racing, & the world, actually work. As to the former question, another argument Gertmenian made when he took over was that jocks were not getting their fair share from the growth in simulcasting. Although the recent action at CD seems to have caused a last second shift, the original & untested strategy which Gertmenian implemented was to continue to collect the $2.2 million a yr from the tracks, & to line up an army of attorneys to force the states, through a series of lawsuits which were close to being filed, to pick up the cost of the coverage by including jocks within workers\' comp since, according to Gertmenian, any state which does not provide workers\' comp for jockeys is guilty of 2nd degree manslaughter. A lot of the far-fetched theories of academics display such a complete lack of understanding re how the world actually works as to be almost comical. Of course, it\'s not so funny when there are people lying around in hospital beds after the theories were tested & found wanting on a group which deserves better.

[HP]

Wow.  I was an \"independent contractor\" for years...I have been up down and sideways on getting insurance for myself and through employers for years.  I read these articles and I just think, \"man there is something WAY OFF about this.\"  I know I\'m not THAT crazy or wrong about it.  It CAN\'T BE the fault of Churchill Downs!  Impossible.  

Thanks for posting this Mall.  I can only hope that the jockeys will wake up and realize that there really is no shortcut -- they have to form their own oversight committee (w/regular outside audits, at the very least) or something so that they can understand and deal with these crucial issues.  If they form a Guild and let someone else have this kind of power it\'s inevitable that they will get screwed.  

HP

[4singles2all]

Why would CD or any other track be expected to pay for worker\'s comp. / accident insurance? The jockeys are not employees of the track. I just don\'t get it.

[Frost King]

If they are not employees, but private contracters, is not banning them restricting them from applying there trade? Either they ride in Kentucky or they don\'t, the state should have the only right to ban them and not the track, without a proper hearing? How can you ban a private contracter, if he chooses not to ride on a particular day. What\'s next they ban all the riders that have red hair and freckles?