I can see the injury rate to horses rising with inexperienced teams of handlers

The stalls handler


The immediate future looks bleak for the RaceTech team of stalls handlers following Arena Leisure's decision to introduce an in-house operation.

"We have been served redundancy notices and are due to finish in the first week of November," said a member of the RaceTech team, who wanted to remain anonymous.

The redundancy offer is the statutory minimum - £280 for each year of employment. "We aren't being offered a contract to resume in April. You now put your name down and wait to see how much work you can get on a rota basis - it could be four days or six days, or less.

"We have 19 full-timers here, which rises to 55 in the busy summer spell. How are they going to employ enough handlers like that?

"The daily rate being offered is £115 - all in. Out of that you have to pay your travel expenses, tax, insurance and food. The net payment at present is £104, plus expenses and a meal."

The RaceTech handler put the daily rate being paid by Arena for their in-house team at £75 "all in". However, Ian Renton, Arena's director of racing, yesterday described the figure as "incorrect" and stressed that his company had recruited a "professional team of stalls handlers".

But with 42 extra fixtures next year, the RaceTech handler questions whether there will be a sufficient pool of people to do the job unless the present situation is resolved.

"Perhaps RaceTech want out of this altogether," he says.

The jockey


Steve Drowne, who has ridden 56 winners so far this season, is appreciative of the help he gets from the experienced team of RaceTech stalls handlers and was one of the first riders to suggest the boycott of last night's Wolverhampton meeting when Arena announced the introduction of their own team at the starting stalls.

"We are losing all these good lads, and no one has thought about what's going to happen next year when the fixture list builds up. We'll be lucky to get 25% of them back with the offer they have been given.

"How can racing afford to lose that sort of experienced manpower?" asked Drowne.

"I am disappointed that more trainers haven't stood by us in this, for I can see the injury rate to horses rising with inexperienced teams of stalls handlers.

"It might cost an owner £30,000-£40,000 to get a horse to its first race, and it should be loaded up by the best people you've got. I have raced all round the world, and believe me, our stalls handlers are the best. It seems crazy to give that all up in order to save some money.

"I understand cost-cutting measures are necessary, but you can't cut back on the business of handling horses.

"The present lads do a great job of pulling us out if there's trouble in the stalls. If you're a part-timer, will you be so keen to risk yourself and dive in to save a horse or rider?"

Drowne is adamant the jockeys have no wish to cause wholesale disruption to rac ing. "We could have boycotted last night at Windsor [which is also an Arena-owned track] if we wanted to do that," he said.

"We need people to understand that it's one thing having a team trained up by Arena for the winter, but what happens, say, next year on Stewards' Cup day with 30 runners in the big race and a handful of other fixtures on the same day?

"It might be best for the lads to break free from RaceTech and set up themselves. We'd support that."