Danny Brock, who has six booked rides at Lingfield Park on Wednesday on a card with only 17 runners, said on Monday that, while he understands why some trainers and owners mounted an attempted boycott of the meeting, he “won’t be told by anyone what I should or shouldn’t do”.
Brock was speaking after the trainer Brian Barr, who has booked the jockey to ride Haats Off in a two-runner handicap on Wednesday, suggested that pressure had been applied to both the rider and his agent over the weekend to join the boycott and refuse to ride at courses owned by Arena Racing Company (ARC) later this week, in protest at a cut of nearly £3m in ARC’s prize money in 2019.
“It’s my decision and I feel it’s the right one for me,” Brock said. “It just happens that the trainers who entered their horses [on Wednesday] are the trainers that support me.
I’ve been loyal to the people who’ve been loyal to me since I’ve been riding and it just happened that they were running. That made my mind up, really. At the end of the day I’ve got a family to feed and bills to pay and the rides were there.
“I totally agree with what they’re doing and I know why they’re doing it and I’m not going against them and doing it to try to prove a point. I’m riding because, if I don’t turn up for the people who have supported me and I’m not loyal to them, I may as well not be riding at all because they’re not going to use me. The bigger trainers are not going to stand by me, so it’s a no-brainer for me, really.
“ I think there’s probably a lot of other jockeys in my situation that probably would have rode and should be riding, but have probably been tied down and haven’t gone with the position I’ve gone with.”
The Guardian understands that the Professional Jockeys’ Association contacted all its members on Monday making it clear that it is entirely their decision whether or not to ride at ARC-owned tracks.
The PJA’s letter says that, while it believes “the overwhelming majority” of riders support the action by trainers and owners, it “cannot and does not tell you not to ride [because] to do so would be inappropriate and, more importantly, potentially unlawful.”
It adds: “We appreciate this will place individuals in a very difficult position but there is unfortunately nothing we can do to prevent that.”
Entries for Wednesday’s meeting were made before news emerged of a temporary agreement between ARC and the National Trainers’ Federation to restore prize funds to 2018 levels until the end of March.
Nineteen horses were declared to run but two have since been scratched and it is certain to be the most poorly supported card in terms of runners since at least 2002, when the British Horseracing Authority started to compile data on field sizes. No meeting since then has attracted fewer than 20 runners.
Exeter 2.15 Smarty Wild 2.45 Secret Reprieve 3.15 Present Value 3.45 Rosemary Russet (nb) 4.15 The Ogle Gogle Man 4.45 Pine Warbler (nap) 5.15 Parlour Maid
Newcastle 2.00 Arctic Road 2.30 Chase The Wind 3.00 The Crazed Moon 3.30 Song Saa 4.00 Jammy George 4.30 Och Aye
Wolverhampton 5.00 Brockey Rise 5.30 Lady Makfi 6.00 Big Time Maybe 6.30 Dream Magic 7.00 Decoration Of War 7.30 Tarseekh