At Preakness, Stakes Highest for Jockeys

If you've paid close attention to Calvin Borel, like Tuesday night when he was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, you've probably noticed that he doesn't have many teeth. America's favorite jockey has lost most of them over the years from falls, or from his face slamming into the back of horses' necks, or from erosion caused by stomach acid after purposely regurgitating countless meals to keep his weight around 110 pounds.

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If you could see his bare torso, it might look like it is missing something, too. That would be pieces of his ribs, six of which have been broken and repaired in part with plastic.

If you could see his X-rays, you'd notice that one of Borel's arms is held together by a plate and eight pins. A shattered kneecap, broken collarbones, broken shoulders, broken legs, broken wrist and broken toes -- almost all of them -- have healed to hold together without props. A ruptured spleen and torn rotator cuff have mended.

And if you realized that his sport didn't provide him a pension, or workers comp in some states, you'd understand that it isn't Calvin Borel who should be the target of criticism for jumping off Mine That Bird, which he rode to a win in the Kentucky Derby, for the filly favorite Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness. Instead, it should be the so-called Sport of Kings -- which forces Borel and his lot to be mercenaries, lest they remain paupers -- that should be at the brunt of the disparagement.

Bettors drop about $15 billion a year on horse racing and the best or luckiest of them walk away as winners with roughly 80 percent of that pot. The tracks keep around $1 billion and the horse owners and trainers pocket about that much too.

The Borels in the game get a mount fee per ride, which could be fifty bucks and is rarely more than $100. They can also get a percentage of the purse for finishing in the money. In Borel's home state of Louisiana, for example, jockeys get five percent of the purse for second- and third-place finishes and 10 percent of the purse for winning. Out of that, jockeys have to pay their agents and a few other folks who help them make what for most of them is a meager living. The Animal Planet's Jockeys docudrama only touches on a part of this hard life.

That was how Borel survived for years until he made it to the big time, and "survived" is the optimum word. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recently reminded us of this fact in a new report outlining recommendations for improving the safety and health of workers in the horse racing business.

Its report was borne from hearings on Capitol Hill several years ago about the lack of health insurance and safety measures for jockeys in particular, and other workers with horses at the track in general. At the time, jockeys were again pressing their industry's leaders for some sort of comprehensive on-track accident insurance for their sport, arguably the most-dangerous there is. The report recited national statistics that between 1998 and 2006 there were at least 14,200 injuries and illnesses associated in thoroughbred and harness racing in the United States. There were 79 fatalities from 1992-2006 that included 28 trainers, 26 jockeys, eight exercise riders, seven grooms, and 10 other individuals called racetrack personnel.



That's why Borel, who so far has escaped the most morbid of those statistics, shouldn't be ashamed about switching horses in mid-Triple Crown stream. For starters, he's earned his way to the top. On Thursday, he became only the fourth rider in the 135-year history of Churchill Downs to win 900 races. He rode War Eagle Lady to victory in the sixth race.

Borel pocketed about $140,000 for pushing 50-1 Mine That Bird to the second-biggest upset in derby history. He had a longstanding agreement to ride Rachel Alexandra, which he did to victory in the Kentucky Oaks, if she was entered in The Preakness. He is only being loyal to his commitment. Staying atop Mine That Bird would've been against the spirit of his game and could have cost him in the long run.

"We are independent contractors," Larry Saumell, a former jockey on the Mid-Atlantic circuit and a representative for the jockeys' union called the Jockeys Guild, reminded me Thursday. "[Our situation] is what it is. They won't give us benefits. I don't even want to get into all that. Calvin is caught between a rock and a hard place."

The rock is satisfying the public's desire to see him ride Mine That Bird again, and the hard place is his fiduciary responsibility to himself and his family and his obligation to ride Rachel Alexandra.

I'd like to see Borel stay on Mine That Bird since their union proved so exhilarating and successful at Churchill Downs. But now we'll have two competitors for a Triple Crown -- the traditional one, the derby-winning horse, versus the non-traditional one, the derby-winning jockey with another mount.

Borel, Saumell said, is doing the right thing, even if it is precedent setting. He's the first Derby winner to change saddles for the Preakness.

"Once you have a call [commitment], you have to uphold that commitment," Saumell said.

And as Borel's medical history suggest, he's one of the lucky jockeys. He needs to get the most out of every mount he can get. Tomorrow could always be his last.