Fipke v. California Horse Racing Board<\/em>, No. B299810 (Cal. App. Oct. 5, 2020)<\/a>.\u00a0 The court held that the fee was prohibited by the Horse Racing Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code \u00a7 19500.<\/p>\nThe horse in question, Forever Unbridled, was entered into the race with the first jockey who therefore received the call.\u00a0 However, the next morning, before the draw (which is the point at which starting positions and final jockey assignments are determined), the owner replaced the first jockey with the second rider.\u00a0 The replaced jockey, who could not secure another mount, complained to the race stewards who determined that he should receive a double jockey fee.\u00a0 Forever Unbridled went on to win the race which carried a purse of $2 million.\u00a0 The jockey who rode earned a $110,000 riding fee, and the replaced jockey was also entitled to $110,000 pursuant to the double jockey fee decision.\u00a0 The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) upheld the race stewards\u2019 decision as did the Superior Court, which denied the owner\u2019s writ petition.<\/p>\n
In reversing the lower court\u2019s decision, the Court of Appeal noted that while Section 19500 gave the CHRB (through the race stewards) considerable discretion to determine the circumstances under which a removed jockey is entitled to a riding fee, that authority was limited by the statute to replacements that occur after \u201cscratch time\u201d which is the time designated by the purse agreement when final changes to the racing program must be made.\u00a0 Here, however, the jockey was replaced before the draw, and the parties agreed that scratch time never occurs before the draw.\u00a0 According to the Court, \u201c[t]he clear implication of [the condition in the statute] is that the Legislature intended jockeys removed from their mounts prior to scratch time would not be entitled to riding fees.\u201d\u00a0 Slip op. at 9.<\/p>\n
Several CHRB regulatory provisions had been advanced to support the imposition of the double jockey fee in this case, but the Court of Appeal found each to be inapposite.\u00a0 Whether such rules would independently authorize the fee need not be considered because such a result would conflict with the language of Section 19500, and \u201can \u2018administrative agency may not adopt a regulation that exceeds the scope of, or is inconsistent with, the enabling statute.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 10 (citation omitted).<\/p>\nThe Court also rejected the argument that the double jockey fee could be upheld as \u201cpenalty\u201d or a \u201cfine,\u201d primarily on the ground that penalties and fines are paid to the state treasury, and the monetary amount here was to be paid to the second jockey as compensation for the lost ride.\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 12-13.\u00a0 Nor did the race stewards have the authority to impose the fee as a novel form of punishment because \u201cthe stewards\u2019 authority to penalize owners is restricted to imposing fines, suspensions and exclusions.\u00a0 A double jockey fee is none of those.\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by John M. Simpson On October 5, 2020, the California Court of Appeal (Second District) reversed a trial court\u2019s decision that had upheld the imposition by race stewards of a double jockey fee upon a racehorse owner who had replaced the jockey the day before the draw for the 2017 Breeder\u2019s Cup Distaff race.\u00a0 Fipke … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “California Appellate Court Throws Out Double Jockey Fee Imposed on Racehorse Owner”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,675,668,672,673,669,671,676,5,670,674],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-animal-law","tag-breeders-cup","tag-california-horse-racing-board","tag-call","tag-chrb","tag-double-jockey-fee","tag-draw","tag-forever-unbridled","tag-john-simpson","tag-scratch-time","tag-thoroughbred-horses"],"authors":[{"term_id":697,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jmsimpson","display_name":"John M. Simpson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/simpsonjohn-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}