The Jockey Club has yet to release the constraints mooted for club jockeys in the new season but the ball is very much in its court after last week's applications for retained jockeys.
The trainers involved - there were eight apart from Ivan Allan - have until Friday to notify the club of the jockeys involved in the event those trainers proceed with the move.
But neither John Size nor Tony Cruz - the trainers in the 'de facto retainerships' of greatest concern to the club - applied for a retained rider and have not made the club's position a simple one.
The club was known to be unhappy to provide the usual club jockey concessions for Shane Dye and Felix Coetzee, even though the lion's share of their riding is for one stable.
Dye's rides for Size represent 73 per cent of his total rides, and some 71 per cent of the runners the yard sends out. Coetzee has ridden 295 of Cruz's 381 runners this season, representing some 68 per cent of Coetzee's mounts and more than 77 per cent of the stable's runners.
Perhaps Size and Cruz are of the view that to retain a jockey would be unfair to their owners, as both trainers frequently have multiple runners in races.
Only one set of owners is able to use the services of the rider for whom all would be paying, and the other set of owners may well be unhappy about that - a not-unreasonable position.
