View From The Eighth Pole: After 15 Years, Oklahoma Jockeys Deserve A Raise (2025)

Can you imagine working the same job for 15 years and never getting a raise? Actually, can you imagine working the same job for 15 years and having part of your income stripped away?

That’s been the case with Thoroughbred jockeys in Oklahoma, who last week said “enough is enough.” When entries were taken for racing on Sept. 4 at Remington Park, no members of the local jockey colony – more than two dozen – made themselves available to be named on horses. Same thing for the Sept. 5 and Sept. 6 programs. When scratch time came for the Sept. 4 card, the jockeys held their ground.

The 15-year-old agreement with the Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma (TRAO), which represents owners in the state, calls for jockeys to receive a minimum of $75. Winning jockeys get a 10 percent share of the purse with second and third getting 5 percent if it exceeds $75.

That may have been fine when this agreement was reached, but $75 doesn’t get you today what $75 may have gotten you 15 years ago. Based on the federal government’s Consumer Price Index, $75 then is worth $50 today. Put another way, with inflation, you would need $112.50 today to buy what you paid $75 for 15 years ago.

When the agreement between the jockeys and TRAO was reached, jockeys received a percentage of Oklahoma-bred purse enhancements. That was taken away two years ago, according to Jockeys’ Guild officials who are trying to reach an agreement for a new mount fee with TRAO.

Most readers already know this, but for those who don’t, also keep this in mind. From a $75 fee, a rider pays an agent 25 percent off the top, with a valet getting between 5 and 10 percent. Jockeys pay the Guild $5 per mount, and because Oklahoma horsemen and tracks are fighting the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the jockeys are required to pay a fee to HISA, which according to the Jockeys’ Guild is $5.76 per mount.

That means the $75 mount fee is down to about $40. Most jockeys ride work horses in the morning without compensation in hopes of securing that same horse to ride in a race. The jockeys at the high end of the standings may do well through their purse earnings, but for everyone else it’s a struggle.

Jockeys have been trying to get an increase for several years, but they’ve been shut down by TRAO. When Quarter Horse jockeys had their mount fee boosted from $75 to $110 this year, Thoroughbred jockeys asked q very legitimate question: Why not us?

Why not, indeed. These men and women, who risk life and limb every time they get on a horse, deserve more than they’ve been getting.

That’s my view from the eighth pole.