#Soundbites
/By Bill Heller
How does the trainer responsibility rule affect you delegating authority to an assistant, exercise rider and/or groom?
Linda Rice
You do your best to control as many variables as possible, but, of course, with the trainer responsibility rules and HISA rules, and considering the environment that we are training under at different racetracks and training centers, there are a lot of moving parts. It definitely gives you cause for pause and reasons to worry, but these are the rules that we’ve lived under for a long time, and we do our best and hope everything goes the right way for us.
Jeremiah Englehart
Ultimately, it’s my responsibility. It’s under my name, I’m responsible whether I’m there or not. Communication is always very important in making sure that the people that work on your team understand exactly what you’re saying and what needs to be done and how to do it the right way. Follow the rules. Make sure we’re conforming to the rules that are up there for us. It’s my name on it, but you can’t do everything in the barn. So you have to delegate.
Michael Matz
You just have to be responsible for people’s mistakes when they do make a mistake. That sometimes can be a very difficult situation. Accidents do happen. Sometimes it gets lost in the translation when you’re telling them to do one thing and it just doesn’t get done the way you ask them to do it, whether it’s feeding the horse, whether it’s taking the horse to the races, whether it’s jogging the horse for the veterinarian. This is the hard part. You cannot be lax. You have to make sure that you get it done right. It makes it more difficult, that’s for sure.
Leonard Powell
At the end of the day, the responsibility is one hundred percent ours. You can delegate some, but you can’t delegate 100 percent. So It’s something that we are always aware of. You have to be extremely diligent with the people you’re working with. You have to be on top of it.
Peter Miller
Let me think about it. It depends on the size of your barn. If it’s a small barn, you can do everything yourself, but when you’re running a bigger barn, it’s impossible. So you have to delegate and trust, but at the same time, that can put you at risk. I understand the reasoning for the trainer insurer rule, but it’s unfair in so many instances.
Kelly Breen
I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of the same help and they know what the trainer responsibility rule is. In this modern world, you never know what your help is doing. Some of the contamination is eye-opening as to what could be happening to some trainers out there.
Allen Milligan
It just puts me at complete weakness. I try to tell everybody who works for me the same thing: concentrate on what’s going on and make sure something doesn’t happen. But mistakes happen. I’ll never forget at Churchill Downs on Derby Day about 15 years ago, one of the people walking down the backside decided to use one of my stalls for a bathroom. It was a lady in a dress. I caught her coming out of the stall and I said, “There’s a restroom right down there ma’am.” I’ve seen it all.
