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I remember NYRA's weight scale in the late '70s like it was yesterday - and this is what it was for colts and geldings regardless of the distance:
March: 3-year-olds, 113 lbs., older, 126 lbs.
April: 3-year-olds, 113 lbs., older, 124 lbs.
May: 3-year-olds, 113 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
June: 3-year-olds, 114 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
July: 3-year-olds, 115 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
August: 3-year-olds, 116 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
September: 3-year-olds, 117 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
October: 3-year-olds, 118 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
November: 3-year-olds, 119 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
December: 3-year-olds, 120 lbs., older, 122 lbs.
In races for fillies and mares, older horses carried 120 or 121 instead of 122.
Of course these weights were before the usual 3- or 5-pound allowances for "non-winners of this or that" were given.
And in the ancient scale of weights for age, the scale weight for older males was nearly always 126 - and even higher in the early months of the year.
So what the jockeys appear to be asking for is hardly unreasonable from a historical perspective.
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