Jockey protest over payments led to canceled Charles Town card

The cancellation of the Saturday night card at Charles Town in West Virginia was due to a decision by jockeys to protest inconsistencies in receiving payments from the track’s bookkeeper, according to officials for the track and the riders.

Jockeys told management that they would refuse to ride the card on Saturday night after being issued checks on Friday with a notification that the checks should be cashed at the casino owned and operated by the track’s parent company due to the possibility of insufficient funds in the track’s normal account, according to the officials.

In a statement, the Jockeys’ Guild, an organization that represents riders throughout the United States, said that “receipt of payment in a timely fashion has been a problem off and on at Charles Town for several years.” The guild said that inconsistencies at Charles Town include the day of the week in which checks are issued, as well as several instances in which riders were advised that the account may have insufficient funds, leading to delays in cashing the checks.

“Most jockeys live paycheck to paycheck, and they felt they had no other recourse but to bring attention again to this on-going situation,” the statement said.

Erich Zimny, vice president of racing operations at Charles Town, acknowledged that cash-flow difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic have led to inconsistencies in the company’s money-management system. However, he said that several riders had cashed the checks they had been issued on Friday and that the casino cashier would have been capable of cashing all of the checks.

Charles Town had eight races scheduled for the Saturday night card, with approximately $130,000 in total purses. The track has added a Sunday night card this weekend with the same races to make up for the cancellation.