Brown fined $1.6 million after government investigation

[Tom]

He should be banned until all money owed is paid.
Didn't notice it in the article, but is he behind on his vet bills?

If you can't work by the rules, you should not be working in the industry. No sympathy.

Byk may have a guest today to discuss this in more depth...not sure what hour.

[clicknow]

Wow. These actions by him and his operation are so abusive.
Forget about suspended. We don't need people like this in the business at all........ever.

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I wonder...do the LESS successful trainers pay their help any better?

Oh most definitely...

Remember Rick Dutrow? Many of his fines were due to administrative and paperwork ****ups...not drug overages...so you can imagine how widespread this particular problem might be in the industry for the folks toiling in the backstretch. This is probably an OH SHIT moment for a lot of operations out there.

Maybe Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel can run another feel-good story on racing...only this time, it's about the human connections.

[Tom]

Can racing do anything without tripping over it's own feet?
They might as well send a letter requesting governmental oversight.

[clicknow]

Originally Posted by Tom

Can racing do anything without tripping over it's own feet?
They might as well send a letter requesting governmental oversight.

How can you not trip, when the rug that you're sweeping so much under has become lumpy and unnavigatable?

[Racetrack Playa]

Originally Posted by clicknow

Wow. These actions by him and his operation are so abusive.
Forget about suspended. We don't need people like this in the business at all........ever.

ban him and his elk.maybe he needs to do some time in PRISON, I think so.

[elhelmete]

It boils down to this. What I'm about to lay out is based on by 20 years experience managing teams of people including several who are basically just like the backstretch workers in racing.

(DISCLAIMER: there may be something I don't know about certain industries being treated differently, like agricultural workers or some classification that may apply to backstretch workers)

You can't pay non-exempt (hourly wage) employees like grooms and some assistants, a flat day rate. Why? A lot of reasons. One that matters a lot is that at some point on the time clock, a day rate averages out to less than minimum wage, a big no-no.

What we do (common and open practice in my line of work), is pay these people minimum wage and for all actual hours worked. In most cases, when workload can be properly managed, everyone ends up getting close to what a "day rate" would be, give or take a few bucks either side. Sometimes I end up paying a ton of overtime. SOmetimes employees make a little less than they assumed. But the thing that keeps everyone out of trouble is that everyone puts in actual hours worked, and breaks, on their timecards.

We know groom work is hardly 9-5 with a tidy lunch break in the middle.

Therefore, a racing operation has a gargantuan job to do to manage their backstretch employees if they want to make sure everyone gets paid properly AND there's no un-approved overtime.

It's a ton of work. In my business, and I'm the top person in my department, payroll takes up a frigging inordinately huge chunk of my time.

Here's how it goes off the rails in MY line of work, and maybe it will illustrate how much worse it could be in racing.

Say I hire 20 production assistants on a show. They all make min wage and the schedules on average will yield them each, say, $180/day before taxes. This includes OT rates for work over 8 hours (which in my line of work is always assumed, as it is in racing). We bend over backward to make them understand that they get paid for all/only hours worked, not a flat.

Now they go out and work for a week. Typically:

14 of the 20 will be pretty much working their expected hours and hit their "day rate"

3 or 4 will somehow end up working fewer hours and will make under their "day rate" and be perplexed, sometimes OK, sometimes angry. We explain it over and over. We remind them they cannot put fake hours on their timecards to get more $.

The last few will be the trouble-makers. They will claim they were never explicitly told to take a meal break (they get +1 hour of pay as a penalty). They will claim they were never explicitly told to wrap for the evening (and accrue OT until they claim they were). They screw around with their timecards in subtle ways that game the overtime pay. And officially questioning a timecard is almost always a losing battle for management...and you just don't want to engage that battle.

It's not an excuse for a trainer to be lax in this regard. But it's no small task to be 100% right on payroll across all those jurisdictions AND it's pretty much guaranteed that within a week's batch of workers' timecards you could probably find a problem in like 2 seconds, that can't be simply explained away. Courts will side with the employees almost all the time in these cases.

[showonly]

He falsified documents to defraud. Are the criminal charges and suspension forthcoming.

[alydar]

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-rac...Of6ZG7u7jcrLEQ

This article breaks down the violations and related costs pretty well.

[showonly]

According to the consent judgment’s itemized list of Brown’s 150 employees who are owed money, at least 10 of them are owed more than $10,000 in combined back wages and liquidated damages. The highest combined amount owed to an individual worker is $27,911.




No big deal I'm sure none of them NEEDED the money they EARNED. Suspension and Criminal charges to follow.

[Secondbest]

I would like to hear from some of the trainers and ex- trainers who post here. Maybe they could shed some light on how widespread this is.

[classhandicapper]

I wonder how much a trainer like Chad Brown actually nets after all expenses. The purses are huge and the daily rates are high, but unless you get to see all the day to day bills, insurance costs, required paperwork etc.. it's hard to make a guess.

I guess I wouldn't be surprised by something like this from a smaller trainer trying to make ends meet, but for someone with a stable like this it sounds more like mismanagement from someone below him than trying to screw people or lack of funds. I have no idea though.

[Saratoga_Mike]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

I wonder how much a trainer like Chad Brown actually nets after all expenses. The purses are huge and the daily rates are high, but unless you get to see all the day to day bills, insurance costs, required paperwork etc.. it's hard to make a guess.
.

Large-scale operations typically make a very modest amount on the day rate and crush it on their 10% cut (pure profit outside of any stable/asst trainer stakes). In addition, someone like Chad Brown most likely receives stallion shares gratis on his really successful horses.

[delsully]

Originally Posted by Racetrack Playa

ban him and his elk.maybe he needs to do some time in PRISON, I think so.

Why ban his elk? He’s a monster on turf...



...I’ll show myself out.

[Jeff P]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

It boils down to this. What I'm about to lay out is based on by 20 years experience managing teams of people including several who are basically just like the backstretch workers in racing....

...Therefore, a racing operation has a gargantuan job to do to manage their backstretch employees if they want to make sure everyone gets paid properly AND there's no un-approved overtime.

It's a ton of work. In my business, and I'm the top person in my department, payroll takes up a frigging inordinately huge chunk of my time...

I agree with your comments about payroll being a ton of work.

Back in the day (mid 1980's to mid 1990's) I worked as an accounting manager for a company that had several hundred employees. Among other things, I did payroll twice a month. (And yes, it was a ton of work.)

I'm guessing being a trainer if you have a smaller string of horses (5 to 10 or so) means you can be a lot more hands on. You probably don't need an army in the way of hired help.

I'm guessing a govt agency conducting a payroll audit of a smaller barn isn't as likely to net significant dollars vs. the same govt agency conducting a payroll audit of a barn with several hundred horses and a small army of hired help.

One of the things I dislike about the way the game has been headed for a while is that smaller independent barns keep getting smaller or even disappearing. (Imo, in large part because they're finding it really tough to compete with the mega barns.)

That said --

After reading about this, a random thought popped into my head.

Does anyone else see this as a potential tipping point?

Is it possible that other mega barns will face similar payroll audits? If so, how likely is it that similar violations are found and similar penalties levied?

Could this be a catalyst that causes mega barns to start downsizing?

If that were to happen, is there any possibility the pendulum starts to swing the other way? --

With the result being that smaller independent barns begin making a comeback?



-jp

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