Horse racing pros need protection

Most jobs in the horse-racing industry could rank as the ‘most untransferrable’ skill sets of any other local employment, options being external to Jamaica, which many horsemen have successfully exercised throughout the years.

Unlike North America, which has many thoroughbred racetracks, scattered far and wide, from Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida, to far-flung places in Canada such as Evergreen Park in Grand Prairie, Alberta, Jamaica has one circuit, Caymanas Park, limiting jobs among trainers, grooms, jockeys, stable hands, farmhands, exercise riders, and veterinarians.

Though it is always desirable for small, developing states to export skilled workers, which, in turn, helps the economy by way of remittances, many countries, in defence of their labour market and foreign-worker laws, will always seek to recruit from within, limiting opportunities for migrants in search of financial stability for themselves and families back home.

Therefore, Jamaica, though having scores of horsemen employed in North America, still has to compete with residents, plus their peers from the Caribbean including Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, plus traditional powerhouses such as Panama, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, countries that have consistently produced Hall of Famers in the United States and Canada.

It is, therefore, most important that the social welfare of horsemen with these ‘untransferrable’ skill sets be taken into consideration by the Government of Jamaica in as much the same way as tourism workers, whose skills, ironically, are highly transferable and in demand worldwide.

Take, for example, Jamaica’s Tourism Workers’ Pension Scheme, which, according to Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, has attracted the attention of United Nations tourism officials, who have cited the model as “one that other destinations could emulate”.

Bartlett said the pension programme, which became effective on January 31, 2020, was created to “address the lack of financial security facing many tourism workers after years of service to the industry”.

Sad to say, but Jamaica’s horse-racing industry is replete with sob stories of professionals — grooms, jockeys, trainers, exercise riders, and farmhands — who, after spending decades caring for horses worth millions of dollars, generating billions for governments’ coffers, end their careers at times penniless and, at worst, homeless.

Though the Jamaica Racing Commission (JRC) has made it mandatory for trainers to make statutory payments — National Insurance Scheme, Education Tax, and National Housing Trust — on behalf of grooms as part of their licensing process, they, themselves, being contracted to owners and responsible for their own filing, are even more vulnerable than their employees to the aftershocks of retirement or career-ending illnesses.

Jockeys and exercise riders, who put limbs and lives at risk on every occasion they jump astride horses, fall within the same category as trainers, responsible for their personal tax filings, exposing them to an even more perilous end should an accident occur.

The industry’s various associations should make representation to government, especially through the JRC, for not only a pension plan but for more comprehensive health benefits given the nature and dangers associated with handling horses on a daily basis.

The tourism pension plan has since recorded $6 billion in savings from 10,800 workers, encompassing not just hotel employees but just about anybody involved in the hospitality sector, including transportation, ultimately expected to benefit approximately 350,000 persons.

It should be noted that the tourism pension plan was started with an initial $1 billion in seed money from the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), an agency of the Ministry of Tourism. The TEF is funded by fees placed on air arrivals (US$20) and sea arrivals (US$2), per person, established in 2004 to finance tourism infrastructure, worker training, environmental protection, and programmes linking tourism to local agriculture and manufacturing.

Similar to the tourism industry, horse racing is a major contributor to not only government coffers but also an islandwide source of employment, making the sector worthy of protection for its most vulnerable, especially given the ‘untransferrable skill sets’, which dominate its professional groups.

It is high time that the Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission be called out to put some of its largesse back into the social welfare of the professionals who enable billions of dollars to flow through its coffers annually.

If the tourism pension plan can be seeded by an agency of government, so, too, can a similar policy be initiated for the horse-racing industry.