(Update: During a special meeting Monday, Sept. 8, the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission approved a directive to enter the permanent rule-making process to codify the agreement between jockeys and thoroughbred owners. Thoroughbred jockey fees will be increased effective immediately, according to acting director Amanda English. The following article remains in its original form.)
Saddle up and crouch down in the stirrups: A thoroughbred racing dispute at Oklahoma City’s Remington Park appears to be resolved.
After tense negotiations, hallway face-offs and forced scratches in this week’s races, the Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma and the Jockeys’ Guild have agreed on updated labor terms — welcome news for an industry that just celebrated its 40th year of horse racing in the state of Oklahoma.
Thoroughbred jockeys in Oklahoma will receive an increase in their minimum pay — called a “losing mount fee” — for the first time in 15 years. Set at $75 per race in 2010, the rate will climb to $100, and an additional fourth-place percentage incentive will be created as well. Riders already received percentages of purses for finishing first, second or third in a race.
In February, an agreement raising quarter horse jockeys losing mount fees to $110 took effect, a figure jockeys sought parity on for thoroughbred races, which are longer in distance.
The thoroughbred jockey agreement comes after labor and industry representatives clashed at the Aug. 21 meeting of the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission over the state of negotiations. Mindy Coleman, legal counsel for the Jockeys’ Guild, said conversations had yielded no progress since 2021. With negotiations still stalled after Labor Day, most jockeys opted not to make themselves available to be named to ride in Thursday’s races at Remington Park. As a result, some scheduled races are short of as many as eight jockeys. Some of Friday’s races were also impacted, but to a lesser degree.
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But Wednesday afternoon, the two sides reached an agreement that is pending adoption by the OHRC, which has scheduled a special meeting for 1 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8. According to the agenda, the commission will “consider whether to issue a directive to modify the application of Rule 325:25-1-30 Jockey Mount Fees to be proposed in the permanent rule making.”
According to a press release by the Jockeys’ Guild, “The Remington Park thoroughbred jockey colony came together as one voice and agreed to the losing mount fees scale presented by TRAO.”
In a statement to NonDoc, Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma executive director Danielle Barber wrote, “It’s been a detailed process, and we appreciate the efforts from all parties involved as we now move forward.”
As the negotiations came down to the wire, jockeys and TRAO were stuck on a key point: who pays the jockeys’ Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority fees. Jockeys wanted TRAO to pay the fee, or to increase the proposed losing mount fee from $100 to $105, in which case they would accept paying $5.76 in HISA fees, according to Jockeys’ Guild President Terry Meyocks.
With the jockeys having met TRAO’s most recent position, the organization is pleased with the outcome, according to Joe Lucas, a longtime trainer and TRAO consultant.
“Right now, we’re all kumbaya,” Lucas said. “We do not have a problem with the losing mount fee. The holdup was when it got down to us paying their HISA fees. We were just not going to do that.”
HISA fees at Remington Park total around $2 million across all payers including tracks, jockeys, trainers and owners. HISA was established under a bill passed by Congress in 2019 and signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2020. The non-government authority seeks to implement a “uniform set of integrity and safety rules that are applied consistently to every thoroughbred racing participant and racetrack facility,” according to the organization’s website.
Ultimately, members of the Jockeys’ Guild acquiesced and agreed to continue paying their own HISA fees in exchange for the increased losing mount fee and the creation of a fourth-place finish incentive, according to a Jockeys’ Guild press release, which claimed Oklahoma is the only state where jockeys are required to pay HISA fees. Notably, if the new agreement is approved by the OHRC, it will expire Dec. 31, 2028, forcing renewed negotiations within three years.
“Once they approve that directive, then these rates will go into effect,” Lucas said. “Until that time, the old rates, or the current ones, will be in effect until the commission takes that action.”
