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

[Indian Charlie]

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.

[Kasept]

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

[Echo Farm]

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.

[Kasept]

Originally Posted by Echo Farm

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.

[Echo Farm]

Thanks, Steve, I need to look around more.

[Hoist Her Flag]

It was a tremendous resource. Unbelievable.

[philcski]

This is an absolute travesty... I have asked Kiris Clown for videos and he's put them up, watch his videos ALL THE TIME, does this all gratis for the racing fans, and some jackass looking for some print ruins it for everyone??? What a ****ing shame. Contacting Thoroughbred Times right now to get this out even further.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by philcski

This is an absolute travesty... I have asked Kiris Clown for videos and he's put them up, watch his videos ALL THE TIME, does this all gratis for the racing fans, and some jackass looking for some print ruins it for everyone??? What a ****ing shame. Contacting Thoroughbred Times right now to get this out even further.

Sometimes I think the less actual money involved, the crazier and more petty people can get (see: community theater). Well, who knows; seeing as how there is really no way any sort of money could be made off of video of 20+ year old horse races, maybe the actual owners of the video rights will be easy going about making them available. It would be tedious to do, but maybe tacking on a thanks to the broadcast company or racetrack at the end of each video might be enough for them to okay the posting of them. The more fuss racing fans make, the more likely a chance to get posting of them really free and in the clear.

On the other hand, some other company may get interested enough to try to buy the rights and make a buck off of them, but that's capitalism in action so there's not much to do about it in that case.

[Revidere]

I agree this is a sad situation. If you do need a fix on racing in "youtube" type CF1970 in the search. Cory does a great job posting races and re-broadcasts. from interviews with Laffit Pincay after Shame lost to Secretariat to whole shows, it is definitely an excellent substituion until intelligence(I use that term loosely) prevails.