JC / Railbird

Entitlement

Huffs TOBA president Dan Metzger of a sponsorship deal between Derby jockeys and NetJets in an odd Blood-Horse article partially sourced by “They”:

“You can’t exclude owners — they own the horses, and should be at the center of discussions. The individual owner should be empowered to make the decision on how sponsorship revenue is divided.”

Unless an owner is donning a pair of thin white pants emblazoned with a sponsor’s logo and swinging their leg up over a horse, then, no, there’s really no reason for them to get a cut of the fee be involved in the deal-making. Owners may own the horses, but they don’t own the jockeys, or their pants.


4 Comments

I think you’re a little wrong on this. The jockeys when they wear those pants on the owners horse are akin to soccer players w/ a logo across their chest. W/O the owner’s horse the jockey would have nothing to ride. Not saying what % they deserve, but they deserve a %.

Jockey deserves money for getting the horse in the winners circle (wear the ad is most prominent). Track deserves money for hosting the event. Owner deserves money for getting the horse there in the first place.

Posted by Handride on May 7, 2009 @ 11:45 am

Your analogy doesn’t quite work. The difference between soccer players and jockeys is that soccer players are members of a team franchise and are protected (and bound) by contracts, but jockeys are considered free agents by owners and racetracks, especially when it comes to little matters like payments and insurance.

Posted by Jessica on May 7, 2009 @ 11:58 am

I just don’t understand why owners and jockeys aren’t more of a partner on this? There’s clearly an interest in jockey advertising for big events. Why is it jockeys versus owners instead of jockeys AND owners?

Posted by EJXD2 on May 7, 2009 @ 12:15 pm

Maybe a true partnership is what Metzger meant with his poor choice of words. Hard to tell from the BH article, which was strangely confused and did leave the impression it’s an owners vs. jockeys issue (with owners wanting control).

Edited @ 6:20 pm …

Posted by Jessica on May 7, 2009 @ 12:34 pm