Jockeys in limbo after equine flu outbreak… we’re not being paid!

We are in a very difficult situation because nobody knows how long this is going to last.

Everyone is trying their very best to get racing back on and get these horses healthy again, but we don’t know whether it is going to be four days or four weeks. We are in limbo.

As a jockey it is frustrating because we are all self-employed and unless we are riding we don’t earn any money. It’s like a gentleman’s agreement. You go in and try to align yourself with the best yard you can, and with the best possible horses, and you work away in the morning to make sure you get the rides in the afternoon.

The equine influenza outbreak has left self-employed jockeys facing financial uncertainty

You get paid for what you sit on in the afternoon at the races, not what you do in the morning.

We don’t get any income if there’s no racing, there’s no insurance or compensation, there is nothing like that. A lot of the lads choose to go off on holiday, but we don’t know when racing is going to start again and it’s important we are in the yard and schooling the horses in case we can run next Saturday and get the ball rolling before Cheltenham.

We all have Cheltenham in mind and we want to get the horses there in the best possible frame of mind and fitness, and it’s very hard to get them there without a prep run.

Luckily Altior has had his run — it’s the horses like Angel’s Breath and Santini who haven’t run since Christmas.

We schooled 30 horses over obstacles on Friday morning at Seven Barrows (Nicky Henderson’s Lambourn yard), so it is business as usual at the moment. There is nothing outwardly that would suggest there are any problems.

Nico de Boinville is a Unibet Racing ambassador. Read his weekly blog at: www.unibet.co.uk/blog/nico-de-boinville.