Originally Posted by ELA

This is where your theory is inaccurate and flawed. If a trainer were charging $55 per day they wouldn't be living in a small town and couldn't be making a decent living at $55,000 per year. We are completely neglecting the real cost of living and I am not talking about some hypothetical nonsense where we believe that the inflation rate is 3%, and a person's cost of living is stagnant.

I have a trainer at Penn National -- a high %, leading trainer. The guy shoots very good. He charges $45 a day. So your theory of "he'd probably me making $6 a day per horse" is, a) completly hypothetical and nothing more than a guess, and b) flawed because the $55 per day is not realistic. He couldn't possibly make the same amount of money you claim he is making (in your purely hypothetical claim) at $45 a day as he would be making at $55 a day. The economics make no sense.

I think most trainers don't make money on their daily rate and if there is a salary built into the equation, there is not enough room to make a so called "living" exclusively on the daily rate. At best it might pay for some personal expenses. I know too many trainers who aren't "making a living" off of just training horses. I think the money is in the portion of the 10% they get to net or keep, the bonus or commission, if you want to call it that, on a big horse being sold, and other variables.

There are economies of scale that most trainers cannot take advantage of unless and until they get their operation to a point of scale where they can make money. I have heard of trainers making money on the daily rate by potentiallycutting corners on help, doing the work of a man/woman themselves, cutting corners on feed, equiptment, or cutting corners some other way.

We have a trainer here telling us the real and accurate situation. I see no reason not to believe that other than to perpetuate some massive facade.

Eric

Originally Posted by ELA

Ladies and gentlemen --

I am quoting myself here to clarify something. The paragraph I have bolded and that starts out "Here is what he told me" IS NOT MY WORDS. I cut/pasted this from another poster so that I could answer the questions and I forgot to remove it. I apologize as those are not my words and I do not believe them to be true.

Thank you! And I will be removing the paragraph from my post. I say this because someone else already quoted me and it was a mistake.

Eric

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I didn't say the guy making $55,000 a year was "making a decent living". I said about the guy making $55,000 a year that "That's not a lot of money but it's enough to get by, especially in a small town". That was my quote. I never said that the trainers at the smallest tracks charge $55 a day. I would expect to see $55 a day at some of the smaller tracks, not necessarily the smallest tracks. We have a horse at Mountaineer who has not run yet. I just looked at the bill and the trainer is charging us $48 a day. On the other hand, one of our trainers at Hollywood Park is charging us $100 a day. Depening on what track you're at, you could see anything from around $45 a day all the way up to around $120 a day. There are certainly trainers that charge $55 a day and that's not at the big tracks. at the big tracks, most of them charge between $75-$100.

Are you saying that most trainers don't take a salary? Cannon Shell told you that they take a salary. If they didn't take a salary, they couldn't survive. What do you think the average trainer's horses make in a year? Maybe $250,000? If they didn't take salary, that would mean that the avegra trainer was making less than $25,000 a year.

Originally Posted by ELA

My point was not to debate you on how much trainers charge. Thank you for pointing out the blatantly obvious, LOL, it's good to know that trainers all over the country charge different rates.

I was in fact rebutting your claim where you were throwing out a number that some trainer somewhere is charging ($55 a day, and tying that to how the person is living -- call it whatever you want -- decent living, getting by, little money, a lot of money, whatever you want to call it; it doesn't matter) -- and that in your hypothewtical example the trainer was making (according to you) $6 a day. You ended up at some hypothetical $50k number. My point was that if this trainer is charging $55 a day, he is not living and working in the smallest town and is not really "making money" and as such when you say "getting by" at $50k per year -- in reality he is not!

Come on now -- you can't have it both ways. Getting by is not really making money. That is exactly what I said in my post. Enough of the semantic merry-go-'round.

Like I said, and I will say again -- "making money" is a very relative term. A trainer taking a salary doesn't mean that the trainer is "making money" per se on that salary. "Making money" and "getting by" are not the same thing to most people. If it is to you, no problem, so be it. I just don't think one person's semantics dictate another person's reality -- Period.

Eric

Originally Posted by The Bid

Ever been to Boston?

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

You don't believe the words to be true? Does that mean you think I'm lying or you think the former commisioner from the CHRB is lying. I've known the guy for 25 years. We even owned a horse together back in the 1980s. I can assure you that he's not lying.

Instead of accusing people of lying, why don't you call the CHRB and ask them if and how they make sure that a suspended trainer is not still collecting money while he's on suspension.

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

You don't believe the words to be true? Does that mean you think I'm lying or you think the former commisioner from the CHRB is lying. I've known the guy for 25 years. We even owned a horse together back in the 1980s. I can assure you that he's not lying.

Instead of accusing people of lying, why don't you call the CHRB and ask them if and how they make sure that a suspended trainer is not still collecting money while he's on suspension.

Originally Posted by ELA

It's kind of like you are having a conversation with yourself. You said a great deal there. Wow, that's a real leap of semantics. Interesting enough -- I didn't say any of that. Here's what I said and here is what it means -- it means exactly what I said! Not what you think I said or accusing me of saying. Take a couple of steps back from the keyboard and relax. I am not nor did I accuse anybody of lying. I don't care what you and your friend claim on this matter. It's not a CA matter and I am not interested in your hypothetical matters, whether CA or otherwise.

I did not agree with your opinion on the entire subject. Thus, the words weren't my words and I didn't want them misconstrued as my words -- period!

Eric

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

You highlighted this quote from me:

"Here is what he told me about bank records: He said that the CHRB has invetigators and they will try to stay on top of the money trail and make sure the trainer is not getting paid. They don't actually subpoena the bank records. They ask the trainer to voluntarily turn them over. If the trainer refuses, then the Board can refuse to give him his license back. Then the trainer could take them to court if it got that far. But usually the trainers will cooperate and give the board their bank records for every month during the suspension."

Then you said, "I don't believe those words to be true".

If the words from my quote are not true, it can mean only one of two things. It would mean either I am lying or the guy from the CHRB is lying.

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

As stated before, the CHRB was a joke for years. They fined trainers for offenses which should have been suspensions and then, worst of all, kept it under the table.
I have ZERO confidence in them or any other racing commission to get much of anything done right. In one major racing state you can shockwave your horse the day before a race or even the day of the race if it is done on a property other than a race track or certified training center. The commission wrote a bad rule and has never got around to fixing the loophole. They know about it but its not on their "agenda".

Originally Posted by moodwalker

How much does Pletcher charge?

Originally Posted by oracle80

Richi,
In Ny(part of the United States) this is simply illegal, plain and simple.
NOONE can get that info except a police or govt agency and even they need a search warrant with probable cause of a crime displayed.
You don't get it.
No racing agency has that kind of power, none.
You are mistaking an agency for an agency with rights to do what you are describing.

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

If you have to ask, you cant afford it !!!

Originally Posted by ELA

It's kind of like you are having a conversation with yourself. You said a great deal there. Wow, that's a real leap of semantics. Interesting enough -- I didn't say any of that. Here's what I said and here is what it means -- it means exactly what I said! Not what you think I said or accusing me of saying. Take a couple of steps back from the keyboard and relax. I am not nor did I accuse anybody of lying. I don't care what you and your friend claim on this matter. It's not a CA matter and I am not interested in your hypothetical matters, whether CA or otherwise.

I did not agree with your opinion on the entire subject. Thus, the words weren't my words and I didn't want them misconstrued as my words -- period!

Eric

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

You highlighted this quote from me:

"Here is what he told me about bank records: He said that the CHRB has invetigators and they will try to stay on top of the money trail and make sure the trainer is not getting paid. They don't actually subpoena the bank records. They ask the trainer to voluntarily turn them over. If the trainer refuses, then the Board can refuse to give him his license back. Then the trainer could take them to court if it got that far. But usually the trainers will cooperate and give the board their bank records for every month during the suspension."

Then you said, "I don't believe those words to be true".

If the words from my quote are not true, it can mean only one of two things. It would mean either I am lying or the guy from the CHRB is lying. If you don't think that either I or the guy from the CHRB is lying, then I don't know why you would say that you don't believe those words to be true. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If the words are not true, then that would mean that either I or the guy from the CHRB is lying.

Originally Posted by ELA

Valid point, and I do see your point, but again there is a disconnect here and somewhat of an inaccuracy. However, now I see and understand how you read that and inferred that I meant that. Be that as it may, it's interesting that when you quoted me, you only quoted part of my sentence. When you quoted me you took part of a sentence that I did in fact say, but you only took part of it and took that part of it out of context. What I actually said -- the complete sentence -- was as follows:

"I apologize as those are not my words and I do not believe them to be true."

So, let me clarify -- my use of the word "true" as part of that complete sentence was not to infer a lie. It was part of the larger context of me saying (actually apologizing) that those were not my words and I did not believe them to be true as I did not speak them. It's about them not being my words, not about your claim. It's a manner of speaking. That's all.

I also made my point to Cannon Shell and I think he clearly understood me. However, that's neither here nor there. I'm

Eric

Originally Posted by Dunbar

Rupert, you have the patience of a saint.

Someone takes you to task over a hypothetical trainer who makes $55/day/horse, because his small town trainer only gets $45. As if that somehow invalidates your hypo. This same poster doesn't like your $6/day/horse salary estimate, but doesn't provide an alternate figure.

Another poster feels the need to point out yet again that in NY it would be illegal for a racing board to try to subpoena bank records. You calmly repeat yet again that it is not illegal to ask for those records from the individual.

Somehow you keep your cool. I'm impressed!

--Dunbar