THE BIZ:
JOCKEYS NOT GETTING THEIR SHARE

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Kent Desormeaux is well off atop Big Brown, but what of the other jockeys?

As Big Brown races for history on Sunday, he and his rivals at the Belmont Stakes will be gunning for $1 million in prize money. Most of the jockeys, on the other hand, will make about $70 apiece—and they won't have any disability insurance unless they pay for it themselves.

That's no misprint. In New York, mount fees—the money paid to jockeys who finish lower than third—are just $105 per high-stakes race, and riders typically pay one-third of their earnings to their agents and valets.

Given how irreplaceable jockeys are—horse-smart, risk-averse flyweights don't grow on trees—you might think they would have a particularly powerful union working to grab a big chunk of their sport's revenues. But you'd be wrong. In fact, the Jockeys' Guild went bankrupt last year.

What happened? For one thing, the Guild has never had the kind of influence among members of Congress and state legislatures enjoyed by track owners, who can ply lawmakers with visits to luxury boxes. Further, jockeys have never shared in TV revenues, leaving the Guild strapped for cash year after year.

Maybe worst of all, in 2001, the Guild named L. Wayne Gertmenian, a Pepperdine economics professor, its president, only to find that he drained its funds to enrich himself. According to a congressional investigation, for example, the guy they call "Dr. G." paid $335,000 in 2004 to a consulting firm—of which Gertmenian himself was the only employee. Meanwhile, Gertmenian allowed the Guild's catastrophic injury policy to lapse, which riders discovered only after jockey Gary Birzer suffered a paralyzing accident. On the day the Guild fired Gertmenian in November 2005, he allegedly cashed hundreds of thousands of dollars in Guild checks, then took a bust of Eddie Arcaro with him when he went back to Pepperdine. Meanwhile, his 300-pound-plus deputy, Albert Fiss, reportedly physically battled a flotilla of jockeys as he departed the Guild. (Gertmenian did not respond to a request for comment.)

The Guild's leadership got better after that: Dwight Manley, a sports agent and rare coin collector, took over in 2006, and was replaced last year by Terry Meyocks, former head of the New York Racing Association. But its cash flow never recovered. So the Guild bought time to reorganize by declaring bankruptcy in October 2007. Unfortunately, that meant it had to suspend its litigation against Gertmenian. And on December 31, the Guild terminated its insurance plan.

Recently, Guild execs have been working to increase mount fees state by state, and to generate corporate sponsorship for riders. And now the Guild says it can generate $213,000 a month in revenues—enough to pay its bills, though not to restart the insurance plan. "We are just trying to get out of bankruptcy and pay health claims from 2007," Meyocks told ESPNthemag.com.

And so jockeys' average annual income hovers around $27,000. And jockeys suffer about 2,000 injuries and two to three deaths every year, while only four states cover riders under their worker compensation programs. Kentucky is a particular disgrace: in 2006, the state legislature rejected a proposal to put a meager 10 cents out of every $100 wagered toward disability and medical benefits for injured jockeys. And a federal bill that would require Insurance for jockeys remains stuck in a House subcommittee.

But that's horse racing: a $15-billion industry that doesn't share much with the little guy.

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