THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Strike Threat by Jockeys’ Guild Only Exposes Its Lack of Power

Every three years, John and Maridee Giovanni make no plans for New Year’s Eve.

On Dec. 31, 1991, John Giovanni, the national manager of the Jockeys’ Guild, was on the phone right up to midnight, coming to terms with the Thoroughbred Racing Assns. tracks just as the existing contract for health and accident insurance ran out.

And before this New Year’s, the Giovannis once more suspended their social calendar, because it was that time again, and then the guild and the racetracks settled a day early, on Dec. 30.

One day does not progress make, however. The feeling here is that the Giovannis will be free for a lot of New Year’s Eves in coming years, even the one in 1997, the last day of the new three-year contract between the guild and the TRA. Because the next time the guild wants to give the tracks an ultimatum, in the form of a nationwide jockeys’ walkout, the TRA may not even take the phone call.

“It’s not jockey racing, it’s horse racing,” Santa Anita trainer Mike Mitchell said a day before the latest settlement, and this is a prevailing attitude that will haunt the guild’s leadership and membership for a long time.

If you look at what they had and what they got, it would appear the jockeys did all right in this round of negotiations. After all, the TRA doubled some of the coverage, made no pull-back in the amount of insurance premiums the tracks will pay, and Brian McGrath, the commissioner of the TRA, sweetened the pot with an extra $150,000 for permanently disabled riders.

But compared to what the guild wanted, the jockeys got far less. More important, they were unable to convince the tracks that an unofficial boycott by most of the leading riders would be bad for business.

The tracks were willing to run races with replacement jockeys, and the top riders, who by and large call the shots for the guild, caved in. The next time, the TRA may say to the jockeys, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

If the negotiations had been a horse race, the Daily Racing Form would have said that the guild broke sharply, settled into its best stride early but then had nothing left for the drive.

Around Breeders’ Cup time, in early November, there was a lot of sympathy for the jockeys and their demands.

The stewards at Churchill Downs unwittingly helped them along, overreacting when the jockeys wanted to wear “47” stickers on their boots on race day, to show the country how many permanently disabled riders there are. When the stewards gave the boot labels the boot, they called more attention to the gesture than it would otherwise have received.

But the people who directly account for jockeys’ earnings--the owners of the horses, who pay the commissions, and the trainers, who usually make the riding assignments--were not prepared to risk their investments over an insurance beef.

Ed Friendly, president of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, was thinking about antitrust action against the guild if the jockeys didn’t ride.

Mitchell said, “It’s the owners who ought to be going on strike. What is it, about 2% or 3% of them that make any money? And how many really rich trainers do you know?”

Another trainer, who didn’t want his name used, said, “When a big-time athlete from another sport walks through an airport, he gets mobbed. These jockeys, nobody outside of racing knows them. Their sense of importance is overrated.”

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This is neither here nor there, but that taking of entries last Friday, when replacement riders and their agents crowded into Santa Anita’s racing office to draw the card for Sunday, was some of the season’s best theater.

Tony Matos, who has booked mounts for the best, was there, handing out a resume for Obed Sanchez, a young apprentice from Puerto Rico and, Matos hopes, the next Angel Cordero. When it appeared at one point that a horse was not going to have a jockey named, a voice from the back said softly, “Billy Fox?”

Trainer Brian Sweeney chuckled. “That is a joke, isn’t it?” he said.

During a strike at Aqueduct in 1988, Fox went from Kentucky to fill in, and even won a $567,000 race.

But no, the agent tossing out Fox’s name was indeed representing that jockey, who was en route from the East to fill in again.

Ray York, 61, was going to ride a horse at Santa Anita, 40 years after having won a Kentucky Derby with Determine.

In Maryland, one of the replacement jockeys was going to be Karl Korte, 60. In 1973, Korte was a fringe player in one of racing’s biggest scams, when trainer Eugene Zeek absconded to the Caribbean with more than $1 million. The money belonged to three Eastern tracks that were left with a batch of worthless checks.

Would they have become headless horsemen had they ridden? We’ll never know, because John Giovanni’s multimillion-dollar demands for the Jockeys’ Guild were ill-timed, reaching the bargaining table during an industry-wide recession. Many tracks are already having a hard time absorbing McGrath’s $2.1-million salary.

Nick Jemas, Giovanni’s predecessor, negotiated some of the earlier insurance contracts when foreign money was gushing into the Kentucky horse market, when there wasn’t a state lottery on every corner, or a riverboat casino on every waterway.

Jemas, a former jockey, was a leather-lunged refugee from the Damon Runyon era. His cigar ashes were a constant hazard, so you had to play him upwind. Jemas lived in North Jersey, and the bargaining sessions were held in North Jersey. Giovanni didn’t have that leverage. Now he never will.

Horse Racing Notes

Mike Smith led the nation’s jockeys in purses for the second year in a row, this time breaking Jose Santos’ 1988 record by $1.1 million with a total of $15.9 million in 1994. Pat Day finished second with $14.5 million and Gary Stevens was third with $12.6 million, according to Daily Racing Form statistics. . . . With $9.2 million in purses, Wayne Lukas won his 11th training title in 12 years. The Lukas outfit won 10 consecutive titles before Bobby Frankel finished No. 1 in 1993. Bill Mott was second to Lukas in 1994 with $7 million, and then there was a drop to Richard Mandella with $4.9 million. . . . John Franks led the owners’ standings for the fifth time with $4.5 million, followed by Juddmonte Farms with $4.3 million and Golden Eagle Farm with $4 million. Franks’ other titles came in 1983, ‘84, ‘86, ’93. In 1994, he started horses in 1,080 races, winning 193.

Goncalino Almeida won Thursday’s first two races at Santa Anita on Jack Van Berg-trained horses, then he capped a three-victory day aboard the Jenine Sahadi-trained Ouzo Powered in the feature. Ouzo Powered, claimed in mid-June for $25,000, has won two in a row after going winless in seven tries following her maiden victory last April. . . . Cat’s Cradle is the probable favorite in a field of 10 Saturday in the $100,000 filly division of the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes.