a weight of jockeys.

​I don’t know if there is a collective noun for a group of jockeys but a ‘weight’, given how crucial the weigh scales is to them, might be appropriate. A gaggle of geese; a pride of lions; a bevy of ladies: a weight of jockeys.
It was his weight as much as the wasting medicine and the bullet that killed Fred Archer. It was weight that prematurely retired Joseph O’Brien from the saddle. Weight, on occasion, has literally driven some jockeys over the edge into alcoholism, drug addiction and into an early grave. Dissatisfaction with weight can be a killer of mind, body and spirit. Ambition easily perishes, I suppose, when in order to ride a no-hoper at 8st 4lbs a slice of dry toast and a few sips of water is all you can afford to put into your body before you set-out on a return journey of six-hours.
As the young, year on year, in our affluent society, not in countries riven by real poverty, not the relative poverty of the West, get weightier, stronger and in many cases, and let’s not be p.c. about it, fatter, it is becoming increasingly difficult for trainers to recruit people who can both ride and ride at a weight commensurate to galloping racehorses. It is a problem that will perhaps never go away.
From time to time it is proposed that bottom weights in horse races should be raised to make life and living easier for jockeys. When I began my love affair with the sport bottom weight was 7st 7lbs, with apprentices able, and expected, to claim their allowance. Back in the history of the sport apprentices might ride at 5 or 6st. If you think I exaggerate read the autobiographies of jockeys like the Charlies Elliott and Smirke who rode in the years between the two World Wars.
It would make life so much easier, and extend their careers by many years, for the top flat jockeys like James Doyle, Ryan Moore and others, allowing them the opportunity to ride in every race at every meeting, if the bottom weight was raised beyond or close to 9st. But what of those lower in the pecking order? The lightweight jockey is all but a forgotten species as it is, if bottom weight became 9st these people would need a stone or more of lead in their saddles to do the weight, disadvantaging them further.
It may be, overall, a leap forward in the general health of jockeys if they were not seduced into wasting to ride a well-handicapped horse in one of the big handicaps. But what about the jockey who can ride at 8st or 8st 3 or 4 without resorting to wasting, flipping or salt baths and long runs in a rubber suit? Should we deny a means to a living to these people just so the top jockeys, who make a really good living riding and winning Group 1’s, can also plunder the 3.30 at Brighton, Redcar or Chelmsford?
As I argue that the journeyman jockey should be catered for with a scattering of races a week restricted to those who have ridden a limited number of winners in a time period of say 6 or 12 months, then a similar number of handicaps a week should exist that goes below whatever new threshold is agreed upon.
This sport caters for apprentices, female riders, amateurs, celebrities and on too few occasions stable staff, why is it a leap too far to help jockeys whose names do not appear in the top half of the jockeys table to earn an honest living? If we owe it to jockeys that wasting is not imposed upon them on too regular a basis as a condition of their employment, is there not a social contract with every strand of jockey to give them opportunity to make enough money to pay their expenses?
When jockeys retire through an inability to provide for their families, it is not unusual for them to be lost to the sport altogether, adding to the staffing crisis that is the day-to-day bug-bear of most trainers in Britain and Ireland. Horse racing exists all around the world, with the countries of the Middle East seemingly in competition with each other to grow the sport’s appeal. Saudi Arabia is the latest to open its arms to the racing world. Perhaps in future the staff presently employed in yards in Britain and Ireland who originate from Pakistan and countries closer to the Middle East might chose to take their skills there. These countries will also need resident jockeys, where the weights carried will be lower than in Europe and we will lose not only our stable staff but a percentage of our jockeys too.