If you’re new to horse racing, you’ll notice very soon that horses will be assigned different jockeys to ride them often during their careers on the track. Rarely will a horse have the same jockey in the saddle from their first start through their last. There are countless reasons for this, but the core principle is simple: horse owners are small businesspeople, most of them with a chief executive mindset, and jockeys in North America are independent contractors in charge of making their own employment decisions.
