Len, read your latest post.

1-- We made about half a million on Victory Gallop alone. You guys may not have made that much from horsemen in the last five years, total.

2-- I turn down somewhere around 50 requests a year from owners and trainers who want us to sell data on the basis you do. I don't do it because in the long run we have made more money by restricting the flow of information to increase its value, and because the part of the business I enjoy the most is the buying and managing of racehorses. If I sold bulk data the way you do I would be in competition with those who buy it, making it harder for me and my clients (not "customers") to do well.

As it stands now everybody who can afford $15 has a "sheet" on every horse that is for sale, but at least it is not mine. Which is why I've been able to buy all these horses who went on to do well-- if everyone had our data I wouldn't have been able to get near some of these, and certainly not VG, which you guys told Elliot was a terrible buy because of how it looked on yours.

But yes, you have done a very good job polluting the water, and devaluing the data for both of us. Since you have never had any success consulting, that's something of a win for you.

3-- Just as Harvey Pack was responsible for a very large portion of your sales to bettors, Ron Anderson has been responsible for a huge part of your horsemen "customers". This is not a knock on Ron-- he has a job to do for his client, and he does it very well. But as part of that job it is in his interest to get trainers to run where he wants, and he does that by selling them on the idea of using your figures. Again, the downside is that lots of people (many of whom don't pay) get access to the data, but you clearly don't care about that-- see the last paragraph, above.

4-- Pretty ironic that the outfit that got Ernie Dahlman away from me by charging him 20% of what I did would moan about my prices to bettors, but it works like this:

a) the difference is that an infinite number of people can bet on a race, but only one can buy a specific horse, which usually costs a real lot of money relative to what people bet, making the data far more valuable on an individual customer basis to horsemen.

b) we created simulcast books both to see if there was a market for a lower end product with less info (there was), and to save a huge amount of print costs. Because we give so much more information than you each horse takes a full 8 1/2 by 11 page, not two per page as for you, and the print costs for all those individual sets was very high. By creating the new product we killed two birds with one stone, and judging by how we are selling versus you guys at two of the biggest markets in the country (outselling you at one, even with you at the other) we have at least wounded a third. It will be interesting to see how we are both selling by the end of this year.

If you are accusing us of giving good value to our betting customers, I stand guilty as charged. And the 65 stake winners we have bought for our horsemen clients indicate that as a group they have gotten pretty good value as well.


5-- Okay, I'll bite. You say I got it wrong on how much you charge, so tell us-- if someone calls to get a sheet for a horse that is for sale, what do you charge? Do you have a monthly fee for horsemen, and if so how much is it, and what do they get?

6-- Feel free to go into detail (and post sheets) to show how I was wrong about your Southern California sprint figures.

7-- Couldn't help but notice you ignored the part of my post about your lack of success in the consulting department.



TGJB