Greatest racing writer and handicapper of all time, AKA Jeff Mende
 

I was going to label the thread something a little more derogatory, but I thought I'd be considerate of Byk here.

For anyone not following the screening room forum here, Jeff Mende is the guy who got all of Kiri's Clown (on DT, Party Manners on Youtube) races taken down because of some fit of jealousy he threw.

When Googling this guy, the first two links I clicked provided me with this little bit of fun.

The first is a comment 'someone' wrote on a Meadowlands blog post. Here it is in all it's glory:

Posted by barack
July 29, 2008, 10:13PM
Jeff Mende was one of the greatest horseracing writers and handicappers of all-time. When someone has that much talent, the people around them usually can't handle it. Thus, his dismissal. The fact that he is no longer writing for you is a disgrace and a disservice to all horseplayers with a hunger for insight and a desire to learn the game. God bless Jeff Mende.


The second link was to a page for political contributions. The one hit on Jeff Mende showed a donation to Barack Obama, which just happens to be the name of that person above who wrote the comment lamenting the dismissal of the great Jeff Mende!!

He reminds me a lot of Claimboxx from AOL, aka Aaron (Aron?) Hesz. But worse. Much worse.

I/C,

Feel free to rip this pathetic douchebag freely. The damage done to racing fans with this vengeful and jealous effort is his new legacy... along side his glorious work at Sports Eye and the Staten Island Advance of course.

Mende's snit stems from Ryan Goldberg's NY Times blog entry lauding Jim Conti's ('partymanners', Kiri's Clown) efforts chronicling racing's history via video on You Tube.

http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/200...tal-historian/

Conti has regularly thanked and acknowledged Mende, who has contributed video to the effort, for his help, but Goldberg did not include Mende in the write-up. That seems to have triggered Mende's wrath which found him telling You Tube that he and only he has the 'rights' to these thousands of videos.

Obviously, this incident isn't going to simply fade away.

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Like the one Injun Chuck found, here is another Mende congratulatory gem that 'somebody' added to the comments section below the Blog.

25. July 15, 2009 6:52 pm

Mr. Conti might have mentioned one of his sources is Jeff Mende, former chart caller who worked for Sports Eye which was the breeding ground that graduated so many handicappers and analyst who thrived in the media in the ’60’s ’70’s, ’80’s and ’90’s including the likes of Marc Segilaub and Brad Thomas who along with Jeff were trip handicappers. As the long time racing analyst for the Staten Island advance, Jeff naturally began building a library of stakes races as his laboratory of handicapping, especially the 3 year olds. He used a satelite signal to pull races from all over the country, and was objective enough in his analysis to gauge horses from the West Coast and the Midwest, so that he was an early backer of the talented horses like Sunday Silence and Risen Star. If you get a chance to sit down with him and watch a race live, or one of the videos he’s contributated to Mr. Conti for the U-tube archieve, you would see that his powers of observation exceed those of a trainer or a blood stock agent. It’s nice to have such a library, but it is enriching to realize that one of the phenomenal eyes in the sport has helped rounded it out.

Bradley Sherman

I usually don't like to link to other forums, but there are 5 pages discussing this at Pace Advantage.

Unfortunately, this vast resource that took so much to assemble is probably gone for the most part, forever.

Here's what is in our Screening Room...

In regards to restoring the 'channel', the good news is there are and will be forces at work to try to right this sad incident.

Thanks, Steve, I need to look around more.

It was a tremendous resource. Unbelievable.

tool

Where can we find this guy on the 'net'?

What a f'n tool...

"Race video generously donated by Jeff Mende..."

Wow!

how can he own these replays? just because he had vhs tapes, doesn't mean he owns the right to the races.

What a douche.

For someone who supposedly worked in racing, google doesn't have a lot of results for him other than in relation to these videos and his political donation.

his address is out there, but no phone or email that I can find.

I've always wondered why the owners of a lot of the material on youTube (not just racing) have allowed it, but to have these videos taken down by the guy who "pirated" them is ironic.

"Racing" needs to get together, archive these, and if necessary, sell a short ad at the beginning of each video to support it. It would be a terrific undertaking. There are so many who would have their hand out for compensation.

you can bet your behind that the nfl wouldn't stay quiet if some yahoo said he 'owned' the right to replays because he taped a broadcast.

How can he prove he owns them?

What I mean by this, is....

This is all hypothetically speaking of course...

No doubt Jim has all these videos now in his collection. What were to happen, say, if someone that also 'happened to have these same videos' contact Jim and offered him many of the same races?

How would he be able to prove this is true or not?

And by the way, I'm pretty sure that not all of those races came from Mende. There were quite a few races I found on an old VHS tape I had that I sent to DrugS, which then he sent to Jim. How can Mende own them?

unemployed word smith
 

This is everything I found on the guy

"JOCKEY WHIPS: Let's just brush aside the fact that jockeys beat the (stuffing) out of horses with whips on a daily basis. There is no hypocrisy here, right?
JEFF MENDE, Howell, N.J. "

"Mazur leaves virtually no stone unturned. His books are impressive.
- Jeff Mende, Staten Island Advance"

"The Jersey Shore Giants Baseball, an established traveling team in the USABL, is currently holding indoor tryouts for 10- and 11-year-olds at Double Play Recreation in Ocean Township at 12:30 p.m. every Sunday through Feb. 26. The Giants play in the spring and fall, and play does not conflict with Little League. Call manager Jeff Mende at (732) 259-0761 or e-mail jmende@optonline.net for more information."

I came across a Mende column in the State Island Advance from April 6, 1997, titled, "Where Is The Passion." I would post it here, but I don't want to run into any copyright issues. :eek: In the article, Mende blames racing fans' lack of passion on "a lack of information of information and education." He then goes on to criticize ESPN for filling dead time during a Jim Beam telecast with, among other things, replays of the Gotham and Bourbonette.

Mende also wrote a column in January of 1996 about Sports Channel New York no longer carrying the "Racing from Gulfstream" show. Menda complained that Sports Channel "let its ego get in the way" of showing race replays to thousands of fans.

Sheesh, what happened to him? The few things mentioned here that he wrote in the 90's makes him seem like he was an okay guy back in the day.

how ironic!

That sure is ironic.. last night he struck again and destroyed my second channel. Claiming he owns the old replays from Gulfstream Park..

Does he have a friend at Youtube? What is Youtube telling you, if anything?