Does racing do enough to help its backstretch workers? | Trainer Magazine | North American Article Index

Jul 26

Jul 26 Does racing do enough to help its backstretch workers?

Staff & Education (NAT)

Does racing do enough to help its backstretch workers? BACKSTRETCH WORKERS America’s backstretch workers have struggled quietly for decades. Working without contracts with the trainers who employ them, in a country lacking national racing regulations and standards, they are at the mercy of the racetracks, horsemen’s associations, and the generic federal and state legislation applying to all workers. Minimum wage is a great concept only when it’s enforced. WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: HORSEPHOTOS.COM, JOannE K. aDaMS, ExECuTIvE DIRECTOR Of BELMOnT CHILD CaRE aSSOCIaTIOn ARING people have rushed in to fill the vacuum on the backstretch, and there are heroes everywhere: racing chaplains around the country; a legendary trainer in California; philanthropic, dedicated owners in New York; a visionary Boy Scout in Chicago; and hundreds, if not thousands, of other sympathetic horsemen and volunteers. They do whatever needs to be done to give these workers and their families a decent life. It’s a complicated mission. “Overall, is it better than 25 years ago? Yes,” said Philip Hanrahan, Executive Director of the National Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association (HBPA). “Is it light years better? No. It’s a hard life. I have the utmost respect for the men and women there every day taking care of horses.” Respect doesn’t buy a loaf of bread. In 2008, an investigation at Saratoga Race Course by the New York State Department of C Labor found that more than 1,275 workers had been underpaid by trainers. The department collected $600,000 in underpayments from 110 trainers and $60,000 in penalties. Two years later, the day after the 2010 season concluded on Labor Day, the New York Daily News ran a story with the headline: “The Hidden shame of Saratoga: Back-stretch (sic) workers live in terrible conditions.” The story said workers “make little more than minimum wage and often get cheated out of overtime, as Labor Department enforcers have repeatedly found,” and that “workers literally sleep a few yards from the animals they spend their days with – not to mention the manure piles. Worst of all, the cramped quarters can and do become ovens – with nighttime temperatures inside their rooms hovering well over 100 degrees during a heat wave earlier this summer.” Workers being mistreated at meets as prestigious as Saratoga doesn’t bode well for their contemporaries at smaller venues. Yet Saratoga offers the most comprehensive backstretch cultural program in the nation, and Saratoga’s sister New York Racing Association (NYRA) track, Belmont Park on Long Island, has an outstanding day care center for children of workers, Anna House, which also serves Aqueduct. All three NYRA tracks have a comprehensive support system – the Backstretch Employee Service Team – as well as a caring, giving partner, the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (NYTHA). At Saratoga, NYRA has rehabilitated two new dormitories for backstretch workers, and four more were expected to be ready by opening day of the 40-day meet on July 18. NYRA has preliminary plans to do the same at Belmont Park, but little progress has been made. This is a complex issue. But it doesn’t have to be. In the United Kingdom, an agreement between the National Trainers Federation and the National Association of Stable Staff spells out racing industry minimum wages on a scale based on age and experience, hours of work, overtime, comp time, subsistence allowances, pensions, holidays, part-time workers, bereavement leave, sickness, accidents, and the procedure in the case of disputes. Horsemen in the United Kingdom can do this because a single national body, the British Horseracing Authority, operates racing. In the United States, the absence of a national racing authority and national regulations leave backstretch workers vulnerable. The prominence of legal and illegal immigrants on the backstretch complicates the issue considerably. These workers pay no rent and are not indentured. They choose to be here. Does that entitle them to a certain quality of life? Is whatever they have here better than the conditions in their own country? Does that matter? If they don’t speak English, shouldn’t they learn? The Problems Heide Castaneda, an associate anthropology teacher/researcher at the University of South Florida, with the help of Nolan Kline and Nathaniel Dickey, authored one of the few published scientific studies of life on the backstretch in the 2010 Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved titled “Health Concerns of Migrant Backstretch Workers at Horse Racetracks.” Castaneda, who has no ties to horseracing, explained her motivation for doing the study: “My expertise is migrant health and medical anthropology. There’s been a lot of work on farm workers and construction workers. I haven’t seen anything about the backstretch. There have been sociological studies about backstretch culture, but I’d never seen anybody put together a study on occupational circumstances with health concerns. In the United States, we have a different idea of how racing should be. There are no regulations. There are no written contracts. Other countries have them. It’s a healthier industry when everyone is taken care of, the horses and the humans.” A couple responses to Castaneda’s survey: “I’m broke and have no money. Write that down.” “These horses get treated better than we do.” The study, which was based on interviews of 84 backstretch workers at a Florida racetrack, stated, “Since the 1970s, this workforce has increasingly been composed of migrants, especially from Mexico and Guatemala. No studies have focused on systematic attention on health concerns of this population and how illness is influenced by unique working and living conditions.” Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens put it this way: “Being around racehorses is a little different. You have to be willing to work on off days and off hours. It’s not like other jobs. We used to give extra if we raced at The Meadowlands at night or if they’re stabled an hour away. You have to give them a little more. Anybody who’s been in the game a long time realizes they have to take care of their men.” Many trainers do. Others don’t. In the study, thirty percent said they had suffered major injuries within the past five years. Many were head injuries. Twenty-one percent said they had never been to a dentist. A 58-year-old groom who has been working on the backstretch for 35 years said a horse “cracked his head” and that he had bleeding in his nose and ears. He was taken to a local emergency room and treated as an indigent patient. A 48-year-old female exercise rider who had suffered a fractured eye socket said, “Anyone who gallops horses or rides at all, we all break bones. We have to keep working, you know? If a horse gets hurt, they say, `It’s off to the farm with him.’ With us riders, we have to keep working. There’s no `Take a week off.’ If we even take a weekend off, we lose our jobs.” The study disclosed that workers misuse drugs intended for animal use, especially antiinflammatory medications. “Not for drug abuse,” Castaneda said. “But because they were in pain.” A common concern among workers was a lack of basic, living standards; low wages; and long work hours. “People aren’t working 40 hours a week,” Castaneda said. “This is seven days a week.” Castaneda said free rent is a dubious plus. “The living quarters, they’re not particularly worth much anyway,” she said. “Most of the people we talked to were living in tack rooms. I don’t think that translates into adequate living conditions.” Castaneda said she received little feedback after the study. Asked if she believed conditions have improved since the study was published, she replied, “Overall, I don’t see much change. I have not seen any new laws or regulations that would affect people.” Craig Wiley, the executive director of the Race Track Chaplaincy of America (RTCA), which serves 48 racetracks in 19 states, is an Army chaplain who retired as a major in 2012 to take his present position. He estimates he’s visited 20 to 25 backstretches the past two years. “I’ve touched all four corners of the United States,” he said. “It’s very obvious that our backstretch workers lack many things,” he said. “Number one is they lack adequate quarters to live in. There is a feeling that the backstretch is given little attention by those with means.” Asked what workers’ number one concern is, he said, “Pay. Wages as well as getting paid for what they do.” Wiley brings a different perspective to racing because he has a different background. “I come from an organization, the U.S. military, that has regulations across the board,” he said. “Whether you’re in California or Korea, it’s the same regulations. When you interview for a job, the first thing you think of is wages and benefits. You have a family to support. These are important to you. I think a more concerted effort needs to be made to promote fairness across the board. In the Army, we always talked about `Taking care of your own.’ The racing industry needs to do that.” California’s Response In 1977, 30 years after the California HPBA was formed and 37 years after the National HPBA was created, California HBPA bookkeeper Joe McAnally, the late older brother of Hall of Fame trainer Ron McAnally, and the late trainer Dale Landers decided more action was needed to help backstretch workers with dental problems. “Joe was trying to help those guys,” McAnally said. “They used to get nothing.” Landers, who won the second race in Santa Anita history as a jockey on Let Her Play on Christmas Day, 1934, and trained War Heim, the winner of the 1971 Strub Stakes at 49-1, and McAnally worked with the California HBPA to have a local dentist treat patients in a small trailer which was hauled back and forth between Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. That crucial first step ultimately led to dental RACING 64 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 33 “In the United States, we have a different idea of how racing should be. There are no regulations. There are no written contracts. Other countries have them” Heide Castaneda Noble Threewitt was a major influence in helping backstretch workers’ families BACKSTRETCH WORKERS ISSUE 33 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 65 and medical clinics for backstretch workers and the creation in 1983 of the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation (CTHF), a self-administered charity to assist financially needy backstretch workers, including trainers, assistant trainers, foremen, exercise riders, pony riders, hotwalkers, and grooms at Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields, Del Mar, Pleasanton, and Los Alamitos. The CTHF works with the California Thoroughbred Trainers (CTT), the Winners Foundation, and the Chaplaincy program. The remarkable trainer Noble Threewitt, who passed away on Sept. 17, 2010, at the age of 99, and Dr. Russell Maatz started the first medical clinic. Threewit, a native of Benton, Illinois, who learned about racing at county fairs, saddled his first winner at Agua Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1932, making him, at 21, the youngest licensed American trainer at that time to win a race. On April 22, 2006, at the age of 95, he became the oldest trainer in North America to win a race when Threeatonce, who was owned by his grandson Chris Chinnici, won a maiden claimer at Santa Anita. Threewit retired on his 96th birthday, February 24, 2007, with more than 2,000 victories including the Florida Derby and Wood Memorial with Correlation, who finished sixth as the favorite in the roughly run 1954 Kentucky Derby. His accomplishments with Thoroughbreds pale to his impact with the people who raced them. Trainer Warren Stute once said, “Noble has done more for the grooms and the backstretch workers than all of us put together.” The separation of his parents when he was a young boy might be one of the reasons Threewit did so much to help families. He served six terms as president of the California HBPA. In 2004, Santa Anita renamed its backstretch medical facility the Noble Threewit Health Center. The next year, he was the recipient of Hollywood Park’s Laffit Pincay Jr. Award, given for serving Thoroughbred racing with integrity, extraordinary dedication, determination, and distinction. His wife of 77 years, Beryl, died two months before he did. Thirty-seven years after that first dental clinic opened, the CTHF continues to serve some 5,000 Thoroughbred backstretch workers. “We deal with the backstretch workers and their families,” Executive Director Kevin Bolling said. “We do everything we can to make sure their health, dental, and vision needs are met. We have clinics in southern and northern California. We provide services through referrals and clinics. “Like with anyone, backstretch workers are looking for cost-efficient and affordable and convenient health care. If we weren’t here, there would be a significant portion of the population that would not have health care.” Workers have small co-pays at the clinic. “We consider ourselves partners in their care,” Bolling said. “Their costs are very nominal: $5 to come in for an office visit. An EKG is $5. Removing sutures is $1. We have contracts with a lot of services. Parts of our funds are through legislation and track donations.” The impact of the CTHF medical clinics can be measured in human lives. In 2000, Diane Contreras, the wife of exercise rider Martin Contreras, went to have a mole removed and a tumor was discovered. She had skin cancer. Within two weeks, she was admitted to Arcadia Methodist Hospital for surgery and treatment. “God and the CTHF saved my life,” she said. In April, 2011, Tanya Garcia Leyva, a hotwalker for trainer John Shirreffs whose husband, Jorge, works as a groom for Hall of Fame trainer Neil Drysdale, visited the Threewitt Clinic for an eye exam. She was advised to get a physical exam, which disclosed she had breast cancer. The CTHF arranged for the chemotherapy and radiation that saved her life. California’s backstretch workers have another valuable resource, the Edwin J. Gregson Foundation. Established in 1998 as a non-profit foundation by the CTT, it was renamed in 2000 in memory of Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Eddie Gregson, a past CTT president who was the driving force in creating the foundation. Gregson’s Gato del Sol won the 1982 Run for the Roses. Former trainer Jenine Sahadi, who won back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Sprints in 1996-97 with Lit de Justice and Elmhurst and the 2000 Santa Anita Derby with The Deputy, is a former two-term CTT president who has been the president of the Gregson Foundation since 2001, a decade before she retired from training with 441 victories and more than $26.6 million in earnings. When she left the backside in October, 2011, she told Esther Marr of The Blood-Horse, “My main preoccupation was taking care of my help that has been with me 16 to 18 years. They are all placed in jobs, which is wonderful.” Asked now why she cared so much about her workers, she said, “Because I was nothing without those people. You can’t do this by RACING 66 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 33 Joanne K. Adams (center) Executive Director of Belmont Child Care Association yourself. I still keep in touch with my employees. These guys take such pride in the job they do. We should give the credit where credit is due. They’re really the unsung heroes.” She knows they’re not treated that way. “A lot of the workforce is just happy to have a job,” she said. “The living conditions, let’s be honest, is below mediocre at best. I think it’s going to be an ongoing problem. A lot of the organizations do the best they can, but it’s hard.” The Gregson Foundation’s mission is “to develop programs to benefit and enhance the quality of life of California Thoroughbred horse racing’s backstretch workers and their families.” The programs include a college scholarship fund started in 2000; the Groom Elite Program, modeled on a program begun by the Texas Horsemen’s Association; and recreation programs including softball and soccer. Since 2000, more than 450 college scholarships have been given to more than 200 individuals. “I feel really good about what the Foundation has done,” Sahadi said. New York’s Response Working with the NYTHA, the NYRA, various governmental agencies including the Economic Opportunity Council, and hundreds of donors and volunteers, the Backstretch Employee Service Team (B.E.S.T.), the Belmont Child Care Association, and the Backstretch Education Foundation have been improving the lives of backstretch workers at Belmont Park, Aqueduct, and Saratoga for many years. B.E.S.T., a 501 (c)(3), not-for-profit agency, was founded in 1989 to help backstretch workers suffering from substance abuse problems. In 2005, B.E.S.T. was expanded to offer workers health care services and financial assistance. Now bilingual, it offers crisis intervention, assessment, evaluation, referral, treatment, and after-care counseling. Eightyfour percent of revenue comes from contributions; 12 percent from fund-raising; and four percent from New York State. Onehundred-twenty-five of B.E.S.T.’s 129 employees are volunteers. The remaining four are full and part-time employees. “New York probably has the most and best services,” B.E.S.T. Executive Director Paul Ruchanes said. “We’ve expanded it greatly. We have acupuncture, chiropractors, podiatrists, and drug/alcohol treatment. In Saratoga we give away clothing.” The most important service is access to health care insurance. “Workers come from poor countries generally,” Ruchanes said. “They have little or no medical or dental care. If you haven’t been to a doctor or a dentist in years, there are going to be problems. We can pretty much get everyone health care.” B.E.S.T., which has facilities at Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course, offers up to $150 in monthly subsidies for backstretch workers’ ago, 600 young workers have graduated from the Groom Development Fund, and more than 1,000 workers have participated in the English classes. A college scholarship fund is also available to workers. Additionally, NYTHA offers dental care, eyeglasses, vaccinations and medical screening, meal subsidies, rent assistance, burial services, recreational programs, and transportation assistance when racing moves from Belmont Park to Saratoga in July and back to Belmont after Labor Day in September. “If we weren’t doing this, there would be holes in the system,” Jim Gallagher, the executive director of the NYTHA, said. “That’s our charge: provide benevolence service.” A practical service, daycare for the children of backstretch workers, was first tackled in New York in December, 1998, when the Belmont Child Care Association (BCCA) was created with the express intent of building a child care center at Belmont, which has the biggest backstretch worker population of NYRA’s three racetracks. The man who made it happen was Thoroughbred owner and breeder Michael Dubb, a successful residential real estate developer in Long Island who became the chairman of the BCCA board and, ultimately, a member of the NYRA Board of Trustees. The idea came while Dubb was watching a football game with Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey. “I was watching a Monday night football game with him, and he said kids were sleeping in their cars unattended on the backstretch because their parents were going to work,” Dubb said. “He said a lot of people thought a place for kids would be a good idea.” With owners Richard and Diane Bomze and trainer Dennis Brida, Dubb went to work. He built the child care center and donated it to the BCCA to serve backstretch families. Anna House was named in appreciation of the twoyear-old daughter of a major donor and opened its doors at Belmont on January 1, 2003. In 2006, Gretchen and Roy Jackson of Barbaro fame created the Lael Scholarship Fund to ensure that Anna House will always have funding. Additionally, they donate every year to Anna House. Anna House got another boost from Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke’s champion racehorse Curlin for Kids Charity in 2008: a donation of $100,000. Dubb donated two expansions to Anna House in 2010, increasing the 7,500-foot facility for 50 children to 9,000 feet for up to 70 kids, and adding a vegetable garden and the Lemon Drop Kid Playground, named for donors Jeanne Vance and Laddie Dance’s 1999 Belmont Stakes winner Lemon Drop Kid. Anna House is open from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day of the year for infants and children up to the age of five. There is a bilingual graduation ceremony when they complete their final year. “The focus here is on early child school development,” said Executive Director Joanne Adams, who was hired in June to replace Donna Chenkin, who retired after 12 years of service. “We tutor them in math and English, which is free for them. They know their numbers. They are capable to go on to kindergarten.” Dubb, who now has three grown children, was asked why he cared so much about the lives of backstretch workers. “I was so moved by the people in the backstretch and the hard work they do, and the responsible way they are trying to raise their children,” he said. “They toil in anonymity. They deserve all the help they can get. They strongly deserve to have their children get a firm foundation for when they go out in the real world. This is the least a racetrack can do. It’s just the right thing to do. I want to be able to say I made a difference.” Currently, there are 60 children at Anna House, which added an after-school program four days a week and is about to launch a summer program for kids aged 6-12. Dubb’s favorite day is Graduation Day at Anna House. “If you saw these kids, there are no words to describe it,” he said. “They’re awesome. They’re happy. At graduation they say what they want to be when they grow up. They’re absolutely incredible.” Asked how big the need is for Anna House, Adams said, “It’s huge. It’s really huge. You’re working these unusual hours. Where would you find daycare? I think it’s really important from an industry standpoint to give back. We’re creating little memories for them. They have music lessons. Art. Chess. Yoga programs. They go on trips. They went to the Botanical Gardens and an aquarium. They have a weekly guest.” Do they have decent home to return to? In a recent page one story in the June 2 Albany Times Union, the newspaper reported that a review of NYRA’s operations by the Franchise Oversight Board, a division of the New York State Division of the Budget, failed to create and implement a plan to “substantially” improve the condition of the housing and working environment for backstretch workers after the Resorts World New York City, the highly-successful racino at Aqueduct, opened in October, 2011. NYRA provides housing to some 1,500 backstretch workers at Saratoga, which has 35 men’s dormitories, three for women, and a handful of smaller men’s cottages. Each dorm has 12 rooms with one to three occupants. NYRA does not allow male and female workers to share quarters at any of its tracks, effectively “It’s very obvious that our backstretch workers lack many things. Number one is they lack adequate quarters to live in. There is a feeling that the backstretch is given little attention by those with means” Craig Wiley BACKSTRETCH WORKERS ISSUE 33 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 67 A happy group of school-aged children in a program at Anna House RACING 68 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 33 Backstretch Appreciation Program provides an incredible service, offering events every day thanks, principally, to Marylou Whitney and her husband, John Hendrickson. Every Sunday night, there are festive dinners: Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Caribbean, Southern, Thanksgiving, and Saratoga Gives Back, sponsored, respectively, by Marylou and John, Gainesway Farm, Neil and Jane Golub, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Riggio, Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Farmer, Mr. and Mrs. John Oxley, Live Oak Plantation, Mr. and Mrs. Ed Lewi, and by local restaurants. Mondays offer four movie nights with hot dogs, chips, candy, and popcorn; a Learn English night with prizes including a TV, a bike, and $100; and a free evening at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. There are five Learn English nights with prizes and one movie with snacks on Tuesdays. Wednesdays are Bingo nights with Tom Durkin calling and prizes and gift certificates. Thursdays are six Learn English nights. Fridays offer two movies with snacks, a casino night with prizes, barn vs. barn relay races, a free bowling night, a wrestling exhibition, and Tie Dye Night. Saturdays feature four Karaoke singing contests and pizza and three Make Your Own Sundae nights courtesy of Stewarts Shops. Other sponsors include NYRA, B.E.S.T., the Race Track Chaplaincy, The Saratoga Economic Development Council, Betty Morrow, Adirondack Trust Co., Gwen Hendrickson, John Nigro, Jane Wait, Stephen Stempler, Paul Post, Ed Swyer, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Toohey, Panza’s Restaurant, and Fine Affairs. Here’s how it started. “Seven years ago, Marylou said, ‘I’d like Saratoga to be the summer place to be for everyone,’” John Hendrickson said. And that was it. Hendrickson said 200 volunteers participate in the program, and though it costs $200,000 annually, “not one cent is spent on administration or staff. We are incredibly proud of this program,” he continued. “It’s not a financial obligation. It’s a moral obligation.” But you don’t have to be wealthy to make a difference. Chicago’s Super Scout Now 19 and looking forward to his sophomore year studying equine science management at the University of Kentucky, Chicago native Tom Kudla fell in love with racing when he was six years old thanks to his dad, who runs a microbiology lab. “My dad grew up five miles dividing families. In the past year and a half, NYRA has renovated two dorms on the Oklahoma Training Track, which is open from April through November across Union Avenue from Saratoga Race Course. These 12-room buildings have air conditioning, baseboard heating, new siding and roofs, and commonarea bathrooms with locker room-style showers. Four more dorms were expected to be ready for Opening Day. “Then we’ll have another two done by this fall,” said Dubb, who has also been a catalyst in this effort. “My goal is to rehab ten more by next year.” He is an incredible asset for New York’s backstretch workers. “The work on the backstretch is being done by first-generation Latino workers,” he said. “It’s no different than what other generations did in the 19th century, the Italians, the Irish people. They come to this country for a better life and a better life for their kids. Being in the construction business, it’s the Latino people doing a lot of the heavy work. Their children will become teachers and doctors.” Plans to build new dorms at Belmont Park have proceeded extremely slowly. NYRA’s frequently contentious relationship with New York State government has done nothing to hasten the progress of these vital capital improvements. At this rate, they might be complete by the time the children in Anna’s house are grandparents. Regardless, the backstretch workers at Saratoga must feel they are in heaven every single night of the 40-day meet stretched over 6½ weeks. Now in its seventh year, the “I think that anybody who has achieved a minimum of success in horseracing has an obligation to help people who are less fortunate prom Arlington Park, and he’s an avid handicapper and a small-time horse owner with claimers,” Kudla said. “My dad taught me how to handicap. I fell in love with it.” When he was six, his dad gave him $6 to play around with when they went to the track. “Then I started using my own money from raking yards when I was eight or nine,” Kudla said. “I was hooked. For sure.” He began working for trainer Wayne Catalano when he was 16. “I was a hotwalker,” he said. “He gave me a chance. I didn’t know what a halter was. I didn’t know anything.” He’s being modest. Walking around the Arlington backstretch, home to some 2,000 backstretch workers and their families, he knew something was wrong. “The dorm apartments … it was rough living conditions,” he said. “I’d see kids playing in a draining ditch. It was nasty. It was gross. It didn’t seem like they had a lot.” Kudla, who also worked for trainer Mark Casse, saw an abandoned old building on the backstretch formerly used by the track superintendent. “It had been abandoned for a few years,” he said. “There was mold in the carpets. It was pretty bad. There were broken windows. Kids threw rocks at the building because they had nothing else to do.” He saw something he could do. “I knew the BACKSTRETCH WORKERS ISSUE 33 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 69 Churchill Downs backstretch had a learning center there when I went to the Kentucky Derby one time. I just went after it.” Kudla made the renovation of the building into a learning center in his Eagle Scout project. He discovered an ally in the D214 Kids on Track Program, which has since lost its funding. His family helped, his dad and mom and especially his younger brother Ben. So did dozens of volunteers. But the biggest assist came from Terry Finley’s West Point Stable. Kudla’s parents had been members of a West Point partnership with four or five horses. Kudla approached Finley. “Good kid,” Finley said. “He really had a great attitude. He was a young man with a vision. He swept us off our feet.” West Point was in. “That was really fantastic,” Kudla said. “I got a lot of my funding through West Point. I was allowed to send out information about the project to every member of West Point. I got 15 computers and $12,000. We bought five more computers from that.” The project took a year. The Kids on Track Learning Center opened in early July, 2011. Now operated by the Race Track Chaplaincy, it serves 500 children. “It felt fantastic,” Kudla said. He not only earned his Eagle Scout rank, he received the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scout program. Kudla is a pretty amazing young man. Besides the learning center project, he started his own equine shampoo company, Polygone Synthetic Surface Soap. “The Polytrack was sticking to horses’ pasterns and legs,” he said. “My dad knew a person at a chemical company. I developed a shampoo specifically to remove Polytrack. I’ve pretty much broken even with it.” This summer, he’s working as a groom at Darley’s Jonabell Farm in Lexington. “I’m enjoying every minute of it,” he said. “I know for sure I want to be in horseracing, maybe as a bloodstock agent. I want to try as many things as I can.” He won’t have to try to make a difference. He already has. Ask any child in the learning center at Arlington. Yet Kudla considers himself the lucky one. He said, “I’ve never had a more rewarding experience in my life.” Kentucky’s Response Kentucky’s racing industry has been trying to improve backstretch conditions for its workers for more than three and a half decades. The Kentucky Racing Health & Welfare Fund, Inc., started in 1978, is just one of many organizations reaching out to them, working closely with the Kentucky HPBA. Bluegrass Charities has been helping workers and their families in central Kentucky for 11 years, and, last September launched a new program with Keeneland, the Comprehensive Outreach and Enrichment Program (CORE). Churchill Downs offers educational programs at its Backside Learning Center. “It’s a pretty good combination of programs,” Marty Maline, the executive director of the Kentucky HPBA, said. For the last 11 years, the Kentucky HPBA has had the services of a Hispanic Coordinator, Julio Rubio, who has also been assisting the National HBPA as a liaison between workers, racetracks, and federal agencies, especially involving immigration issues, since the fall of 2011. Both Maline and Richard Riedel of the Welfare Fund are long-tenured executive directors who have worked as hotwalkers and grooms, giving them unique perspectives on backstretch issues. “I’ve lived it,” Riedel, who has been the head of the Welfare Fund for 28 years, said. “I was a stable employee myself, and I also trained horses.” Maline, who has been leading the Kentucky HPBA for more than 30 years, said of his experience on the backside, “I think it’s helped me to be able to explain to the racetracks what they (backstretch workers) are going through.” The Kentucky Racing Health & Welfare Fund is a charitable, non-profit organization providing benevolent assistance for medical, hospital, vision, and funeral expenses. State legislation mandates that revenue from uncashed pari-mutuel tickets be directed to the Welfare Fund. The amount of the revenue has declined slightly annually since the advent of advanced deposit wagering. “ADWs don’t have uncashed tickets,” Riedel said. The improvement in health benefits for backstretch workers who qualify for the Welfare Fund can be documented. Recipients, who must document their employment with payroll stubs or checks, receive staggered benefits depending on the number of years they have been licensed in Kentucky, from a minimum of one year up to six years or more. “We’re not health insurance, but we cover up to $20,000 a year in benefits, including $1,000 for dental, for people who have been licensed for six years in Kentucky,” Riedel said. “When I started this job, the maximum benefit was $4,000 a year. Underneath that, we would pay 50 percent of medical bills. Now we pay up to 90 percent. We now pay for acupuncture, chiropractors, mental health, and substance abuse counseling.” The Welfare Fund, which also offers housing for older, low-income backstretch workers, has paid more than $39 million in health benefits since its inception. But there are backstretch workers who don’t qualify for the Welfare Fund. “We cannot help every person,” Riedel said. “We can’t help a person who is unlicensed or is working for cash. We try to get them to free clinics. We have a resource book in Spanish and in English.” The Welfare Fund, in a joint initiative with Northern Kentucky University, operates the Horsemen’s Wellness Center at Turfway Park, and, partnering with the University of Louisville School of Nursing, the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center. Additionally, the Fund also operates the Kentucky Race Track Retirement Plan. The Fund had the legislation for uncashed tickets amended to allow up to 25 percent of the money from the uncashed tickets to go to the Kentucky Race Track Retirement Plan. It started more than a decade ago, and requires no funds from the people who enroll. “That’s a nice parting gift for those folks when they’re ready to hang up their pitchforks,” Riedel said. The Kentucky HBPA’s Maline said, “They (the Welfare Fund) do a tremendous job. We work in conjunction with the Welfare Fund. We can be a little more flexible and help workers who hadn’t qualified or had maxed out benefits with the Fund. For instance, we had a young lady who had delivered a baby through a midwife. The midwife was licensed in Kentucky, but insurance didn’t recognize that. Welfare doesn’t recognize that. We were able to help with that.” The Kentucky HBPA has helped workers by having Rubio as Hispanic Coordinator. “He’s been a godsend for the Spanish community,” Maline said. “He gives them a voice.” Rubio said, “They trust me. They come to me for everything, social security, food stamps.” Rubio, an American citizen who was born in Mexico, said, “Overall, things are good. I walk the barns every day. Honestly, I travel the country. I don’t hear people complaining. They do work six days a week. Some work seven. Trainers then give them another day off. The rooms have beds, a microwave. The big issue is immigration.” In central Kentucky, backstretch workers have another resource in Blue Grass Charities. “We try to make sure that people have the necessities of life,” Blue Grass Charities President Mary Lee-Butte said. “We don’t want anyone going without basic needs. If they are facing a legitimate hardship or if their children have needs, that’s what we’re here for. When people don’t qualify for the Fund, that’s when we step in. There was no organized safety net until we came around.” She said she would like to see the racing industry offer more health clinics. “Particularly dental clinics,” she said. “Dental services are severely lacking, not just at the tracks but at the farms as well. There are people who have never been to a dentist. We see that all the time.” At Churchill Downs, where an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the backstretch population is Hispanic, the Backside Learning Center, which opened on June 30, 2004, offers classes in English, Spanish, computers, and citizenship, as well as tutoring. Originally known as the Klein Family Learning Center, it was initially funded by the Klein Family Foundation and WinStar Farm. A Model in Florida If there is an American model of backstretch living conditions to emulate, it is the Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach, 49 miles north of Gulfstream Park. Owned and operated by Frank Stronach’s Magna Entertainment Corp., the 304-acre facility just off the Florida Turnpike opened in 2003 with living quarters for exercise riders, hotwalkers, and grooms which resemble a college dormitory more than a tack room. Four three-storey buildings consist of 52 rooms, each 12-by-20 feet with two beds, a shower, a toilet, a microwave, refrigerator, heat/air conditioner, and storage locker. Each building has a laundry room equipped with three washers and three dryers. In the courtyard, there are two sand volleyball courts and a patio with benches and barbecue grills. “That’s Mr. Stronach,” Palm Meadows General Manager Gary Van den Broek said. “He wanted to provide better living facilities for the people who work here. There’s nothing fancy about them, but they’re better than other facilities.” Other facilities can get better. They need to get better. “We should do more,” Saratoga’s John Hendrickson said. “We will do more.” They need to. For as long as there are no national regulations or written contracts with trainers, America’s backstretch workers will forever remain at risk. n BACKSTRETCH WORKERS ISSUE 33 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 71 It sounds so simple, the current agreement between the National Trainers Federation and the National Association of Stable Staff in the United Kingdom explained in the agreement’s Preamble: “The Agreement provides for a Racing Industry Minimum Rates of Pay Structure and certain standard conditions of employment for stable Staff employed by trainers in the racing industry.” The agreement went into effect January 1, 2014, and extends until September 30, 2014. All wages are given in pounds. For purposes of comparison, the current exchange rate as of July 2, 2014, was $1.72 U.S. Dollar = $1 British Pound. Among the agreement’s contents: Wages Minimum rates for a 40-hour basic week are determined on a sliding scale from 1 through 6. They vary by age in Scales 1-3. Scale 1 for a trainee – Ages 16-17 – £150.14, upwards; Ages 18-20 - 203.18, upwards; Ages 21 and over – £252.40, upwards. Scale 2 for an improver – Ages 16-17 – £179.51, upwards; Ages 18-20 – £203.18, upwards; Ages 21 and over – £252.40, upwards. Scale 3 for a rider/groom/yard person – Ages 16-20 – £203.18, upwards; Ages 21 and over – £252.40, upwards. Scales 4 for a senior rider/groom/yard person; 5 for a skilled rider/specialist/yard person; and 6 for a supe rvisor of staff/senior manager all pay the same – £282.52, upwards. There is a consolidated wage covering overtime worked on weekends with a sliding scale for the six different scales. Work Week The normal work week is 40 hours excluding meal breaks. Stable staff returning from racing after midnight shall not be required to start work until 9:30 a.m. If they are asked to start earlier, they will be paid at a rate of time-anda-half. Overtime Overtime will be paid at time-and-a-half for working Monday through Saturday and at double time for working Sundays. Traveling time while working is treated as working time. Stable staff are paid for time outside the yard at £6.70 per hour. Subsistence Allowance Staff going racing Mondays through Saturdays get a daily subsistence allowance of £10 up to eight hours and £13.5 for more than eight hours. Staff who race on Sundays in Great Britain receive a Sunday Racing Payment of £30. There is an overnight allowance of £15, which is tax free. Pensions The employer contributes an annual payment of £440 toward a pension for each full-time employee who is aged 18 to 65. Holidays A sliding scale covers employees. For the first year of employment – 30 days including eight public holidays. For up to five years of employment – 32 days including eight public holidays. For five years and more – 34 days including eight public holidays. Bereavement Leave Stable staff receive a maximum five days to attend the funeral and deal with family and legal matters. An employer may, at his discretion, negotiate a period of unpaid leave for employees requiring a leave greater than five days. Sickness/Accident Absence Stable staff with more than six months of employment receive up to one month annually in paid sick/accident leave except if the accident has been caused by an employee who was involved in fighting, drunken behavior, or drug abuse. It does not include racing accidents. Employees pay £2.37 weekly to the Racing Industry Accident Benefit Scheme. Injury benefits are paid for a period of up to two years from the established date of the accident. Disability/Death Payment In the event of death, partial disability, or permanent disability, benefits will be paid up to £103,000. Clothing Trainers are recommended to assist stable staff in purchasing work clothes such as jodhpurs and jodhpurs boots. Skull caps and safety vests should be provided free of charge by the employer. Disputes Disputes are covered in a separate section of the agreement.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO READ ARTICLE

New research into the treatment of tendon and ligament damage in the Thoroughbred

Jul 26 New research into the treatment of tendon and ligament damage in the Thoroughbred

Treating outbreaks of flu in vaccinated horses

Jul 26 Treating outbreaks of flu in vaccinated horses