This is a ‘special report’ from the LATimes. It discusses the NY report and how Stronach doesn’t comply with those standards.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/more/la-sp-santa-anita-horse-deaths-20190622-story.html
The NY report only looked at NY and made recommendations, and didn’t establish industry-wide standards. NYRA and Stronach are totally different entities. I remember the Aqueduct deaths, but don’t remember anything about a formal report being generated and industry-wide recommendations being made.
And now, here comes Steve- AGAIN!!
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Palm Beach - I think the point was that the report generated by NY could become a basis for industry-wide standards.
BTW–I’m not sure if someone is trying to be funny --but it is Asmussen
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:winkgrin:
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It wouldn’t be an “entire paradigm shift” to pay employees what the law requires and to keep the employment records that the law requires. Those basics of business, are what both of these trainers apparently neglected to follow.
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There is no one governing body for racing, each state regulates racing, and each state is very different. Plus you have a bunch of different owners.
That could be said for pretty much the entire equine industry regardless of discipline. That doesn’t excuse Brown or Asmussen, but the tracks are better targets for audits–central location and lots of employees. Pretty much every boarding barn I’ve encountered shredded labor laws–stall muckers designated as contractors, kids providing labor in exchange for lessons (it’s still income for the worker, no W2s issued or payroll taxes paid,) kids doing barn work that violates child labor laws, and the list could go on and on. As mentioned about location, auditing activities at the track is much more efficient for the investigator than driving from barn to barn in the country to examine one or two employee operations. Again, not excusing the Brown or Asmussen operations.
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I agree with you completely, but for those in the industries that are carried by these hard working individuals, they would need to adjust how they do business- from what they charge, to how they pay, and the records for all of that, from start to finish. That is a substantial change for most.
flipping burgers and picking summer vegetables were not meant to be career choices. I am sorry but they were not, are not. They are jobs that have to be done but they, unfortunately are non-skilled labor. Back in the day those types of jobs were for the high school and younger crowd as a stepping stone. Summer jobs and in between school. Nowadays kids sit at home until they are 30 playing xbox and don’t apply themselves to get to work and apply themselves as a skilled labor workforce. In the context of society, flipping burgers isn’t a $15.00 an hour job and if they get that raise, then everyone else down the chain should get an equal pay raise.
I am not saying that track workers should be paid 8.00 an hour. My comment was more of a general one about society as a whole. I don’t get to decide on what trainers pay their employees but I can stand up and say that there is no excuse for not paying them the overtime they are owed, paying them on time, and paying them fairly (in context) for the work that they perform.
Steve ASSmussen is a repeat offender for screwing over his employees. this is a guy who has a very large stable of horses spread out. There is absolutely no reason for him to not have a part time HR employee or “office” manager to handle at least his payroll. What he has done, repeatedly, is inexcusable.
Yes there are many employers in the equine industry that skirt labor laws. There are also violators in the restaurant industry and I believe Wal Mart had an issue regarding overtime and had to pay a settlement.
This thread is about racing though, and the trainers that are cheating their employees.
Thank you for clarifying your original comment, but you are still approaching the yesteryears with bias, assumptions, and rose-colored glasses. I’m having a slow day at work, so if you want to take the off-topic talk into the PMs, I’ll start pulling statistics and primary sources on the history of labor in the US.
That said, the rest of your comment is absolutely on point. Wage theft and labor violations in the equine world are absolutely rampant; I can’t tell you the number of times I was stiffed on pay one way or the other when I was working as a groom. And that was just in a smaller boarding facility where if the owners skirted labor laws they could probably get away with it. To cheat employees when you have such a large and well known operation in the most regulated subsection of the equine industry isn’t just nothing short of insanity, it’s a disgusting display of hubris.
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Like On the Farm said,
If the NY department of labor wants to go after folks for underpaying grooms, they need to raid every horse barn in the state.
Especially show and competition barns where there’s that mentality that it’s OK to hire “working students” to work 70 hours a week for free because they are getting the opportunity to learn through osmosis. :lol:
Enforcement has to start somewhere.
“Working students” at show barns are usually young and one would hope their parents would be paying attention. Of course, hope springs eternal in the human breast…
I don’t believe the NY authorities have sufficient numbers to raid everyone at once. I think that if they were given some good information about the show barns that are known to be violating employment laws, and if they find violations and prosecute them, the knowledge that the “heat” is on might persuade others to straighten up and fly right.
However, it may take action from some of the people here (who seem to know that these show and competition barns are violating the law). Speak up. Do so, if the sympathy for the grooms and working students being cheated is more than lip service. 
I know hundreds of young teens and out of that number only a handful are doing internships. Kids these days don’t want to get their hands dirty or work in the fields or barns; out of the AC and long days. That was my point. My parents and my grandparents were all people who worked in the fields and barns of local farms as soon as school was out for their summer wages and the majority of their friends did as well. Times have changed
Back to racing; the Labor board went after Chad, then they found dirt on Steve. These 2 are not the only ones. There will be others ousted but since they are not the big names; there likely wont be any press about it. Imagine If labor investigators showed up at every track in north America then every horse barn in north America.
@snaffle1987 - it’s usually college kids - young adults - who do internships. When my kids were in high school, all their friends worked in the summer once they were old enough to get summer jobs. They went to private schools, not sure if that makes a difference. And many of the kids who got nonseasonal jobs kept working through the school year.
I think you mean “outed,” not “ousted.”
And look at the great success of inspecting Big Lick shows and barns.
