apprentice/conditional jockeys.

​You can understand why Richard Fahey, Andrew Balding and Richard Hannon, respected trainers one and all, have got their knickers in a twist over the issue of payments to the apprentice jockeys they employ. Of course, their collective attitude toward the matter has overtones of the Victorian era when racehorse trainers were often Machiavellian in their approach to the management of their stables, regarded as ‘lord and masters’ of all they surveyed and their apprentices treated as mere ‘servants’. In those days, trainers were not averse to locking apprentices in their dormitories at night for fear of any of them getting out and selling stable secrets to touts. If for no other reason the situation regarding the trainer/apprentice working relationship was in desperate need of being brought into the modern era.
Instead of 50% of riding fees and prize money going to the trainer the apprentice is indentured to, now the ratio will be 80/20 in favour of the apprentice, though from next flat season onwards apprentices will be obliged to supply all their own kit and pay their own travelling expenses. For the three aforementioned trainers, this will result in a severe drop in income as they are known for employing talented apprentices who prove popular with other trainers. Given the number of major handicaps won by apprentices from these three stables over the past, say, 10-years and the top jockeys who started their careers with them, races not necessarily won on their horses but the yards of other trainers (the employer of the apprentice receives 50% of the prize money irrespective of who trained the winner) you can understand their ire or downright outrage.
Although my sympathies tend to lie more with the apprentice than the trainer, I do think the B.H.A. might have found a more equable solution to the dispute. Firstly, why is it that young jockeys on the flat are termed apprentices, while young jockeys over jumps are termed conditionals? By using different terminology, it is too easy for trainers to cry foul, to argue that an apprentice is a horse of a different feather to a conditional. For arguments sake, let’s get ride of the term apprentice and refer to all young, inexperienced jockeys as conditionals and treat them the same.
Personally, I do think the B.H.A. may have shot themselves in the foot by removing entirely the incentive for trainers to employ a large number of apprentices. Just as an aside, trainers, too, might be shooting themselves in the foot as with the pressing recruitment crisis in racing I just don’t think they are in any position to disregard this source of stable staff.
I would have resolved the problem thus: For their first 10 rides, a period when they would ride under a probational licence and claim 10lb, and this would be controversial, apprentices/conditionals would receive no riding fee, though valet fees, insurance, etc would be paid, with any prize-money won split on a 50/50 basis. As this would save owners money it would incentivise them to put an inexperienced jockey on their horses. After 10-rides young jockeys would be accessed by one of the racing schools and if they have demonstrated the necessary skill-set will be rewarded with a full licence to ride. Upon their 11th ride, the new system would kick in, with the 80/20 split and a claim of 7lbs regardless of who they ride for.
Where the B.H.A. has erred, even though what they have achieved is laudable, is that apprentices/conditionals are not only jockey-wannabes but essential work and schooling riders. Despite the highfalutin bellyaching of Messrs Fahey, Balding and Hannon, trainers need these young men and women to the same extent as the young men and women want opportunities to race ride. In essence what the B.H.A., in their quest for fairness have achieved, is to make more difficult to resolve, even if the outraged trainers are equally to blame, the staffing crisis that exists in racing. If young people ambitious to become jockeys are not encouraged into the sport, the long-term damage will be catastrophic as those that fail to become professional jockeys will not be there to fulfil the equally vital roles as work-riders, head-grooms or simply the foot soldiers that keep the job ticking from one day to the next.
The Trainers Association must realise that the system in place of today is too reminiscent of the bad old days of masters and servants. The B.H.A. must realise that the regulations they are about to implement may not be in the long-term good of the staffing situation in racing.