Jockeys Agree on New Contract : Horse racing: Tracks don’t compromise much in deal. Old-timers won’t have to be called in.

The Jockeys’ Guild and the Thoroughbred Racing Assns., close to an impasse over insurance coverage that would have resulted in second-string jockeys riding at tracks throughout the country Sunday, reached an unexpected agreement Friday afternoon.

When entries were drawn for Sunday’s card Friday morning, all the big-name jockeys but Pat Valenzuela were expected to be on strike. Trainers grabbed whatever riders were available.

But the settlement sent such riders as Ray York, 61, back into retirement and made a trainer again out of Don Pierce, 57.

York, who won the Kentucky Derby with Determine in 1954, and Pierce, who retired from riding in 1986, were two of the replacement jockeys who would have ridden at Santa Anita on Sunday had the guild and the TRA not settled their differences before midnight tonight.

Many of those replacement riders will now be replaced themselves by jockeys such as Kent Desormeaux, Chris McCarron, Gary Stevens and Eddie Delahoussaye, with Santa Anita’s management compensating the original substitutes in varying amounts.

“I’m happy that this has been resolved,” said Cliff Goodrich, president of Santa Anita. “I said all along that both sides were trying to resolve this. I think both sides have compromised for the good of the game.

“I must admit, though, that when I woke up (Friday morning), I was moving from being an optimist toward the other side of the ledger. The light seemed to be getting dimmer.”

There was little compromising, according to Brian McGrath, commissioner of the TRA, which represents 41 tracks, including Santa Anita and most of the country’s largest. The TRA made what McGrath called “our best and final offer” on Dec. 9, and McGrath said that Friday’s agreement, which will run three years, through 1997, contained only one concession from his group: an extra $150,000 for the guild’s fund for permanently disabled jockeys.

The rest of the highlights of the settlement were already on the table before McGrath and John Giovanni, national manager of the Jockeys’ Guild, broke off negotiations last week.

Under the new contract, the TRA will pay $1.7 million annually toward premiums for the jockeys’ health and accident insurance. The levels of coverage will be double what they previously were, to $100,000 for medical and surgical coverage, and $200 a week for disability up to 104 weeks. The accidental death and dismemberment benefit is $25,000, five times what it was in the old contract.

The new agreement also continues catastrophic-injury coverage in the states where jockeys qualify for workers’ compensation, which include California. The catastrophic-injury benefits will receive a cost-of-living increase starting Sunday, the first day of the new contract.

The jockeys, who have said that the $1.6-million TRA payment in 1993 resulted in a shortfall of almost $800,000, were asking for a package, estimated at $9 million to $10 million, which would have been funded by deducting one-tenth of 1% from the betting handle. The jockeys also wanted the tracks to acknowledge their television rights as they apply to the national telecasts of races and the simulcasting of races for betting purposes.

“There’s nothing in the new contract that changes regarding the rights issue,” McGrath said. “We disagree with the guild and question whether they own any such rights.”

Although there appeared to be solidarity among most of the front-line jockeys at the major racing centers in California, New York and Florida, the position of the guild riders may have been weakened when it appeared that Santa Anita and Aqueduct were going to be able to put on cards that might have little impact on betting.

“If we had gone with what we had Sunday, I think it would have been good racing,” said Pete Pedersen, a steward at Santa Anita.

Attempts to reach Giovanni Friday night at his office in Lexington, Ky., were unsuccessful.

In the Santa Anita jockeys’ room Friday, several riders seemed relieved about the settlement.

“I’m very happy, because nobody wanted what was about to happen,” Delahoussaye said. “The TRA had the advantage in this because they pushed us to the deadline for the second straight time. We should have been bargaining with them long before we started bargaining, and the fault was theirs, not ours. They wouldn’t meet with us until it was almost too late.”

Giovanni had complained that informal negotiations with the TRA didn’t begin until August. In 1991, with another contract about to run out, the guild and the TRA reached an agreement less than an hour before the deadline.

“I’m in position to quit riding today if I wanted to,” Delahoussaye said. “I’d like to ride two more years. Now maybe I’ll be able to enjoy those two years.”

With Sunday’s walkout forming, Valenzuela had his pick of many of the top horses on the card, and he wound up with mounts in all nine races, many of them favorites. He was reinstated as a guild member after being suspended by the jockeys’ group a few years ago following a drug-related suspension from California stewards.

“He was well-justified in riding (despite the planned walkout),” trainer Darrell Vienna said. “Rather than protecting him, the guild turned on him at a time when they should have been offering him help for his problem.”

York was scheduled to ride only one race Sunday, and Pierce had a mount on Sneakin Jake, a horse he used to train. Some of the other replacement jockeys included 54-year-old Jerry Lambert, Kenny Skinner and Maryland-based Andrea Seefeldt, who rode Concern twice in stakes this year.

“I called my private insurance agent,” Valenzuela said Friday. “I’m serious. I wanted to increase my coverage for Sunday. Let’s face it, some of those guys hadn’t ridden in years.”

Horse Racing Notes

Trainers can make jockey changes for Sunday at scratch time of 8:30 a.m. today. . . . When entries were taken Friday, alternate jockeys were listed for many of the horses in case there was a settlement. . . . Santa Anita’s jockey colony was thinned this week, anyway. After being involved in spills during the opening week, Chris McCarron sat out another day Friday because of sore ribs and Kent Desormeaux, who has a sore neck, rode one race and skipped the rest of the card. Fernando Valenzuela has been absent since his opening-day spill, but his agent, Ray Kravagna, said that he has been released from the hospital and might resume riding in four or five weeks, sooner than expected. . . . Chris Antley, rider of a disqualified winner on opening day, is scheduled to start a five-day suspension Sunday, but he’s expected to appeal the stewards’ ruling. The owners of the disqualified horse, Shiny Slew, are appealing that decision.

Fandarel Dancer, ridden by Fernando Valenzuela when he won the California Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita in October, will be ridden by his cousin, Pat Valenzuela, in Sunday’s $100,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes. Others entered are One-times-oneisone, Strategist, Runaway Bay, Holiday Dream, Hermosilla, If I Only Knew, Snow Kidd’n, Awesome Daze and Hunt for Missouri. . . . Eliza, champion 2-year-old filly in 1992, has been retired. She ran fourth Wednesday in the Market Basket Stakes and finished with five wins in 12 starts and purses of $1 million. Her biggest win was in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, but she had trouble sustaining that form after a third-place finish against colts in the 1993 Santa Anita Derby.