Page 66 - May 2021

“If we can increase the endowment to significantly more than $15 million, those jockeys could basically live
off the endowment.”
– Jockeys’ Guild President and CEO Terry Meyocks
subsidize the program. “While we are proud and grateful to have been able to continue this program since 2006, it also comes with great disappointment that we haven’t been able to increase the monthly stipend since the PDJF’s creation in 2006, knowing that living and medical expenses have increased for our recipients,” says Nancy LaSala, Permanently Disabled Jockeys’ Fund Executive Director and Board President. “Unfortunately,
without a guaranteed revenue stream from horse racing, our focus has been to meet annual funding needed to continue. The new Riders Up initiative will give us an opportunity to grow the endowment and work towards increasing the monthly stipend to levels above the national poverty rate.”
“If we can increase the endowment
to significantly more than $15 million, those jockeys could basically live off the endowment,” adds Jockeys’ Guild President and CEO Terry Meyocks, a third-generation race-industry employee.
THE PLAN
Horse owning PDJF board members developed and presented a new funding initiative to the PDJF board that, when implemented as a national program, would allow the PDJF to achieve additional support for its recipients.
The resulting Riders Up Initiative consists of offering horse owners whose horses win a race the opportunity to contribute a bit of their good fortune to fellow horsemen in need: the disabled jockeys.
“The tax-deductible donation would be optional and based on a sliding scale of perhaps $15-$200 according to the median price of the purse for which the horse has run,” says Nancy. “All efforts will be made to communicate the program’s details to horse owners to allow them to make their decision before the program launch, and if by chance funds were deducted from someone who didn’t realize they could opt out, we’d happily refund with no questions asked. “The response has been very positive,”
she adds, “so now it’s our burden, but also
our pleasure, to go to each racing jurisdiction in the country for their approval and implementation because we want it to be a national program.
“We realize awareness is everything. The boards of horsemen’s groups will be making decisions for maybe thousands of members, so we’re making all the tools we have developed for this campaign available to them so they can use their social media, email and texting to get the word out directly to their constituents,” she says.
The marketing campaign PDJF will share with horsemen’s groups and racetrack officials includes press releases, social media and video content, and radio messages that can be distributed via horse racing media to raise awareness.
“Each racetrack and horsemen’s group has its own operations procedures,” says Nancy. “Some are similar, and some are different.
But the industry works off of one software operating system: InCompass. InCompass Solutions is a technology company operated by the Jockey Club. We’re grateful as they support
In addition to donations by individuals and entities such as TVG and Breeders’ Cup, raising funds has included jockey-interactive public-awareness events, including
Inflatable Horse Races
Autograph Signings