Legislative Issues & Policies - Jockeys Insurance Fairness Act

Introduction
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Energy and Commerce Committee conducted three hearings on “Thoroughbred Horse Racing Jockeys and Workers: Examining On-Track Injury Insurance and Other Health and Welfare Issues” in the 109th Congress. The Subcommittee is chaired by Congressman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) is the ranking Democrat. The financial travails of the Jockeys’ Guild under Dr. Wayne Gertmenian prompted the Congressional oversight.

Along with representatives of the Jockeys’ Guild and individual jockeys, many of the leading racing organizations testified at these hearings.

The hearings reviewed the activities of the Jockeys’ Guild under Dr. Gertmenian, including the stewardship of the Guild under Dr. Gertmenian, its finances, jockeys’ insurance coverage, both health and catastrophic, the transparency of the Guild’s operations and its accounting for funds.

Mr. Whitfield said on several occasions that the hearings were intended to allow the Subcommittee to look at the need for adequate catastrophic on-track insurance for jockeys, exercise riders and back-stretch workers. During one of the hearings, Mr. Whitfield sounded a theme expressed several times by other members of the Subcommittee when he asked “whether we need a federal solution because of the fragmented structure of racing which operates in thirty-eight states.”

House Legislation
Following the hearings, Representatives Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) introduced the Jockeys Insurance Fairness Act (H.R. 6158) in the House of Representatives. According to statements made by Representatives Whitfield and Stupak in introducing the bill, it is intended to provide funding for health and injury insurance for jockeys, exercise riders, trainers and backstretch workers.

Insurance Funding Provision. The bill would amend the Interstate Horseracing Act by requiring that the written agreement that a track must have with a horsemen’s group prior to entering into a contract to simulcast races out-of-state include a provision that “not less than 50 percent of any amount received by the horsemen’s group under such agreement” be paid by the horsemen to the state racing commission. The commission would use these funds to offer health and injury insurance for jockeys, exercise riders and backside personnel and trainers. [Although it is not clear from the bill language, we understand that the intent is that the 50 percent redistribution be applied to the payments made to the horsemen’s group, not the entire amounts allocated to purses.]

The new requirements would not apply in states where jockeys, exercise riders, backstretch workers and trainers are included in a state’s worker’s compensation program.

Anabolic Steroid Prohibition. The bill also includes a federal prohibition against entering a horse in any race subject to an interstate off-track wager “if such horse has been given anabolic steroids of any kind.” It directs state racing commissions to “develop procedures for and administer appropriate testing for the presence of anabolic steroids.”

New Civil Actions. The bill would also give a jockey, exercise rider, trainer or other backside worker personnel authority to bring a civil action in a federal district court for injunctive relief to restrain violations of the new requirements requiring insurance and prohibiting the racing of a horse that has been given anabolic steroids.

Congressional Action
The bill was referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on which both Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Stupak sit. No action was taken on the bill.

AHC Position
Because the bill would inject the federal government and regulations into areas that have traditionally been the jurisdiction of state authority, insurance, drugs and medication, the AHC does not support the bill.