Jockeying for position starts long before the race begins.

On a November day in the racing secretary's office at Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia, about 20 jockeys' agents are standing around, as usual, cracking jokes and griping about how long it takes the secretary to start "the draw."

In the draw, always held two racing days before the races in question, the secretary determines which horse will have which post position.

One of the most famous agents, Harry "the Hat" Hacek, has just arrived from racetracks in the Midwest. Hacek is there to represent jockey Alex Solis, who just fired his former agent. There is a lot of turnover in the business, Hacek explains.

"Basically, jockeys are as loyal as cobras," spits Ray O'Brien, who has been a jockeys' agent since 1961 and currently represents jockey Fernando Valenzuela (no relation to the former Dodger pitcher of the same name).

Prior to the draw, trainers have entered their horses into races to be held that day. In most cases, they have reached agreement with the agents over which jockey will ride which horse in which race. But because of cancellations, race changes and the popularity of certain jockeys, sometimes a jockey is initially slated to ride more than one horse in the same race.

Agents representing the hot jockeys -- like Terry Lipham, a former jockey who now represents great jockey Eddie Delahoussaye -- are at the draw because their man has been chosen by more than one trainer to ride more than one horse in the same race. In such instances, which are common for Delahoussaye and other top jockeys, the agent informs the racing secretary which horse his jockey will ride.

"The draw" involves random picks of dice and cards, with one die and one card being chosen to match up each horse with each post position in each race. The die numbers represent the post positions, and the cards have the names of the horses.

The draw on this particular day begins when John DeSantis, agent for hot apprentice jockey 18-year-old Sal Gonzalez, picks dice from a plastic milk bottle. Simultaneously with each die selection, the racing secretary picks a card and calls out the name of the horse that will run in that post position later that week at Hollywood Park in Inglewood.

There are about 45 jockeys who ride racehorses year round at Southern California tracks -- Santa Anita in Arcadia, Hollywood Park in Inglewood and Del Mar Racetrack in Del Mar, near San Diego. About 20 jockeys' agents represent those 45 riders.

Jockeys ride for the racing purses (the money prize for the winners of the race). Jockeys receive 10 percent of purses when their horses win and 5 percent if the horse places (runs second) or shows (runs third). In addition, jockeys receive a nominal "riding fee." The jockeys' agents receive 25 percent of what the jockeys make, the riding fees and purses.

The top jockeys in the nation, like Delahoussaye, Gary Stevens, and Kent Desormeaux, will each gross more than $1 million this year, according to the Daily Racing Form, the newspaper which is referred to as the horse-player's bible.

Their agents will each make six-figure salaries, the newspaper reports and the agents confirm.

But not all jockeys and agents are as well paid.

"The top 10 guys ride the majority of the horses," O'Brien says. "You got 10 guys making a good living, the rest of us are struggling."

The top jockeys are riding six or seven races a day, while the lesser-known jockeys may ride one or two, the agents explain.

In addition to riding in far more races, the hot jockeys also get to ride the best horses. So, for a lesser-known jockey, racing purses are few and far between.

Some jockeys, therefore, may not get anything more than the riding fee, which can be as low as $50 a race. And then, of course, they must split that nominal fee with their agents.

DeSantis says: "The best ones (agents) can make upwards of $300,000 (a year); the worst ones, zero."

And unlike other big-money pro athletes, jockeys and their agents "have no contracts; it's a handshake deal." DeSantis says.

Maybe that's why there's so much hiring and firing going on.

O'Brien relates, "Recently, an agent got fired before he ever rode a horse for the jock." (In agent-speak, agents say, "I rode the horse," to mean that they put their jock on a certain horse. In reality, many agents never go near a paddock.

O'Brien recalls another agent who was fired by his jockey by telegram. The agent was vacationing in Hawaii at the time.

But not all jockey-agent relationships are as fast and loose.

Bill Shoemaker, widely believed to be the best jockey of all time, stayed with his agent, Harry Silbert, for about 30 years -- from Shoemaker's first race until Silbert's death.

"When I was 16, I lived with (Silbert) and his family," said Shoemaker, now a trainer of horses which run the big Southern California tracks, despite having been paralyzed by a car accident a few years ago. Shoemaker is now wheelchair-bound.

Silbert "put me on horses, live horses," Shoemaker remembers. "He did everything for me."

Jockey Stevens says his agent, Ron Anderson, makes the decision on which horse he will ride in almost all races, except for big-stakes races. "It takes the pressure off of me to make those decisions," Stevens explains. Anderson also decides when Stevens needs a break, Stevens adds, and will simply enter him in fewer races.

Stevens says he never tells Anderson he needs a break, but Anderson instinctively knows. "He just does it," Stevens says.

While working under a different agent, Stevens almost quit horse racing a few years ago, he says. But Anderson convinced him to stay in the game, and became his agent. Since then, Stevens has become one of the nation's top jockeys, according to the Daily Racing Form.

Anderson says an agents' job is to put his jockeys on the best horses. And, therefore, agents spend the majority of their time handicapping races.

Recently, Lipham was hailed for putting Delahoussaye on Cardmania, the winner of the $1 million Sprint in the Breeder's Cup races held Nov. 6 at Santa Anita.

Last year at the Breeder's Cup, Delahoussaye also rode the winner of the Sprint, a horse called Thirty Slews, grandson of the great champion, Seattle Slew. It would have been customary for Delahoussaye to ride the same horse again this year, Lipham explains.

But this year, "Thirty Slews hadn't done as much," he continues. So, he and Delahoussaye talked about it, and decided they wanted to ride a lesser-known horse, Cardmania.

"Everybody thought we were crazy," Lipham says. Lipham and Delahoussaye got a lot of criticism "from the sheets (racing papers) and the papers out of New York," Lipham said.

But on Nov. 6, Cardmania won the race and Thirty Slews finished out of the money.

Terry Lipham is the only jockey's agent who is himself a former jockey, he says. Back in 1985, he took a spill at Del Mar, he says. "I shattered my skull and lost 80 percent of my hearing," Lipham relates. "For six months, I had double vision."

Six months after that injury, Lipham got up on racehorses again and was in another accident at Santa Anita. "I was in a bad one here, broke my ribs in 28 places," Lipham recalls. "That was back-to-back, and the doctor said I had to give it up."

Lipham says he wasn't sure what he was going to do, but then Delahoussaye, who holds the distinction of having won back-to-back Kentucky Derbies in 1982 and 1983, asked him to be his agent. That was in 1985, and Lipham and Delahoussaye have been together ever since.

Delahoussaye has been talking frequently about retiring in recent months; although, at 42, "he's probably riding better than he ever has," Lipham says.

What Lipham will do after Delahoussaye does retire, he doesn't yet know. But that lack of job security doesn't seem to bother Lipham. "If you're an agent, you don't buy anything on credit," he says.

That's because smart agents know that, if you put your jockey on a bad horse, "you could be fired the next day," Lipham says dryly.