Tom Richmond: Overpaid footballers could learn lessons from struggling jockeys

There is little in common between top-flight football and horse racing except for leading luminaries of the national game – like Sir Alex Ferguson, Harry Redknapp, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen – seeing their colours carried with distinction on the racetrack.

Mediocre players in the Premier League can command seven-figure salaries for playing no more than two games a week in a sport that has few injury risks.

In contrast jockeys will be paid £157.72 to risk life and limb in jump races from New Year’s Day – or £112.37 for contests on the Flat. That is before their expenses, and issues like tax, are taken into account.

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Most jockeys do not race for money; they are motivated by the love of the sport and are never more than one obstacle away from a career-ending injury.

Yet, if football wants to restore its tarnished reputation in 2013 and hold players to account for their indiscipline, then its leaders should follow the example of horse racing which is now imposing harsh fines on jockeys for any indiscretions – even those where nothing worse than ‘human error’ is to blame.

Take Daryl Jacob, the Grand National-winning jockey who won this year’s Aintree renewal on the now retired Neptune Collonges. The grey beat Sunnyhill Boy in the final stride – the official winning margin of a ‘nose’ was the closest recorded in the history of the race that dates back to 1839, and both the victorious rider – and the runner-up Richie McLernon – did not breach the sport’s stringent rules on use of the whip that marred Jason Maguire’s success in 2011 on Ballabriggs.

Jacob now finds himself on the sidelines for 10 days – and unable to ride the Paul Nicholls-trained Kauto Stone in the prestigious King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.

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His offence? He mistook a path that crosses the turf at Wincanton for the winning line 40 yards further on – and lost a race that he could have won. Ultimately beaten by a neck, Jacob told me at Doncaster that he was not certain that Ulis De Vassy would have prevailed because the horse was tiring – and any further use of the whip would have triggered a ban.

The stewards disagreed and said Jacob’s riding did not look good to the viewing public, or punters.

“I had my head down, but I should have known better – I live near the track and run round it at least three times a day. I won’t be making the mistake again,” said Jacob, pictured right.

As most jockeys are self-employed – only the very fortunate have paid ‘retainers’ with trainers and/or owners which provide a guaranteed income – it means that Jacob will have no income from riding fees, or his percentage of any prize money, until he returns to the saddle on January 2 after the busy festive racing programme has come to a conclusion.

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He is not alone. Felix de Giles, a jockey who has turned to boxing in his spare time to help sharpen his race fitness, will sit out 12 days after his mount went the wrong side of the dividing rail between the hurdle and chase bend at Lingfield.

Unlike those football managers who have eyesight failure when their players are committing acts of violence on the pitch – Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger is the worst example – de Giles held his hands up and apologised.

The humility does not end here. Ryan Mania – stable jockey to showjumping legend Harvey Smith and his wife Sue – has an enforced eight-day holiday that he picked up when suffering a heartbreaking defeat aboard Gansey in the Grand Sefton Chase over the fearsome Grand National fences.

Though he used his whip correctly, and within the permitted limit, one ‘hit’ left a minor mark on the horse’s skin that had been clipped the previous day. Even though Mania has had a blemish-free record over the previous three years, he will miss the most lucrative period of the racing year. There were no complaints in public on the part of the 23-year-old – just an acceptance of his punishment. In some cases, suspensions of this scale will mean the difference between a jockey’s ability to pay their mortgage or their fuel costs – their riding fee becomes even more modest when travel expenses, insurance costs and fees for agents and weighing room valets are taken into account.

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Such punishments concentrate minds. Unlike footballers and their win bonuses, a jockey’s share of any prize money is very modest – 6.9 per cent if they win a race and four per cent if placed.

Yet declining race values, a trend accelerated by the recession, mean there are frequently days when AP McCoy, the most successful National Hunt jockey in history, can frequently make more money from his riding fees on any given day than the prize money accrued from two or three winning mounts.

It is why so many people in horse racing were incredulous when former England captain John Terry was fined £220,000, and banned for four games, for racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand. To the odious defender, it is little more than a week’s wages at Stamford Bridge – spare change.

Ditto Manchester City’s sulking striker Mario Balotelli. Even though he missed a fifth of his club’s games last season through suspensions, he initially appealed a club fine of £340,000 – a fortnight’s wages at best – for poor discipline on contractual grounds before finally accepting his punishment.

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And this is before the pitiful fine of £65,000 that UEFA imposed on Serbia for racial taunts against England’s Under-21 team. Is it any wonder that some football stars think that they are above the law when they know that any offence – whether back-chat to a referee or violent conduct – is unlikely to make a material difference to their lifestyle?

I could go on. But my point is this: contrast this leniency with horse racing. It, too, had a poor reputation until the British Horseracing Authority put in place a regulatory framework that promised a zero tolerance approach towards corruption – and a disciplinary structure which upholds the highest standards of probity and horsemanship at all times.

On the whole, it works. Ask Daryl Jacob, Felix de Giles and Ryan Mania. As they spend Christmas counting their losses, they all have one very simple resolution for 2013 – not to err again unless they want an even more draconian punishment.

If only football was so enlightened. For, if it was, the so-called beautiful game might be able to look to the future in 2013 with optimism.

and another thing...

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TO many, sporting greatness is still defined by Olympic oarsman Sir Steve Redgrave’s five gold medals that he won over a 16-year-period of domination from 1984 in Los Angeles to 2000 in Sydney.

Very few of Team GB’s gold medal winners in London will match this level of success – even more so in an endurance sport such as rowing.

Yet, in many respects, AP McCoy’s superiority as the greatest National Hunt jockey is even more impressive than Redgrave’s legacy.

This is a rider who has been his sport’s champion for 17 consecutive seasons, a reign which dates back to the 
1995-96 season.

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It does not end here. McCoy, at 38 years of age, is on course for an 18th consecutive title despite a horrific fall at Wetherby last month that required more than 20 stitches to facial wounds.

As McCoy closes in on his 4,000th winner, his record of longevity, endurance and consistency is, in my opinion, far greater than Sir Steve Redgrave’s record. The oarsman only had to win every four years; McCoy has to prevail in his battle for supremacy every year – and also stay injury-free – in one of the most dangerous sports of them all if he is to remain No 1. His like will never be seen again.