Norman gets six-month suspension

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

There is only an extremely small percentage of trainers that are making money on breeding rights. You are talking about way less than even 5% of the trainers when you include all the tracks across the country. There are plenty of trainers out there who have nothing but $20,000 claiming horses. At some of the really small tracks, it's more like nothing but $5,000 claiming horses.

Anyway, I would estimate that well over 95% of trainers make the majority of their money from their salary(which comes from day money), rather than from purses. Even on a big circuit like the Southern California circuit, I would estimate that over 80% of the trainers make more money from their salary than from purses.

I would estimate that 5% of trainers make enough on the day rate to not be considered poverty level.

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

I would estimate that 5% of trainers make enough on the day rate to not be considered poverty level.

That was the point of my post that Richi took issue with and tried to disprove.
Perhaps Richi only deals with higher end guys, but I know quite a few trainers who people would think are "successful" guys to some extent who really have to scrape by.
The point of my post was that be financially successful at the higher end venues as a trainer, you must develop horses that are sold for good money or train one who gets a stud deal.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by oracle80

That was the point of my post that Richi took issue with and tried to disprove.
Perhaps Richi only deals with higher end guys, but I know quite a few trainers who people would think are "successful" guys to some extent who really have to scrape by.
The point of my post was that be financially successful at the higher end venues as a trainer, you must develop horses that are sold for good money or train one who gets a stud deal.

I would estimate that more trainers make money trading horses than training them. I'm positive that a lot of trainers are losing money. And with expenes continuing to rise i'll bet the % goes up every year.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

I would estimate that 5% of trainers make enough on the day rate to not be considered poverty level.

Are you including their salary? There are hundreds of trainers across the country whose horses earn under $200,000 for the year. These guys are obviously making more than $20,000 a year. I'm not saying they're getting rich. I'm not saying that by any means. I'm sayng that they're getting by and making a living. Let's say you have a trainer at one of the smaller tracks and he has 20 horses and they earn a total of $200,000 for the year. Let's say the trainer is charging $55 a day. What would his salary be? He'd probably be making around $6 a day per horse. That means he's making $120 a day, so his salary would probably be around $3,600 a month. So this guy would probably be making a little over $50,000 a year total. That's not a lot of money, but it's enoiugh to get by, especially in a small town.

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Are you including their salary? There are hundreds of trainers across the country whose horses earn under $200,000 for the year. These guys are obviously making more than $20,000 a year. I'm not saying they're getting rich. I'm not saying that by any means. I'm sayng that they're getting by and making a living. Let's say you have a trainer at one of the smaller tracks and he has 20 horses and they earn a total of $200,000 for the year. Let's say the trainer is charging $55 a day. What would his salary be? He'd probably be making around $6 a day per horse. That means he's making $120 a day, so his salary would probably be around $3,600 a month. So this guy would probably be making a little over $50,000 a year total. That's not a lot of money, but it's enoiugh to get by, especially in a small town.

What about the owners who stick you for bills of an amount to small to waste lawyer fees on that he has to eat?
YOu got that figured into the equation?
Unless you are talking about a place where that never happens. Its called Fantasyland downs.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by oracle80

What about the owners who stick you for bills of an amount to small to waste lawyer fees on that he has to eat?
YOu got that figured into the equation?
Unless you are talking about a place where that never happens. Its called Fantasyland downs.

Sure there will occasionally be people that don't pay their bills. That happens in any business.

[ELA]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Are you including their salary? There are hundreds of trainers across the country whose horses earn under $200,000 for the year. These guys are obviously making more than $20,000 a year. I'm not saying they're getting rich. I'm not saying that by any means. I'm sayng that they're getting by and making a living. Let's say you have a trainer at one of the smaller tracks and he has 20 horses and they earn a total of $200,000 for the year. Let's say the trainer is charging $55 a day. What would his salary be? He'd probably be making around $6 a day per horse. That means he's making $120 a day, so his salary would probably be around $3,600 a month. So this guy would probably be making a little over $50,000 a year total. That's not a lot of money, but it's enoiugh to get by, especially in a small town.

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

[Rupert Pupkin]

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

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. Depending 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.

[ELA]

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.

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

[Rupert Pupkin]

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

I think I have been very clear with what I have said. The semantics are irrelevant. I totally agree with you that money is a relative thing and what is a large amount of money to one person may be a small amount to another. The posters on this board can decide if they think that $100,000 a year is "good money" or if $200,000 is good money or whatever. It obviously depends a lot on where you live. They did a segment a while ago on CNBC showing what you can get for your money in different cities. They showed a brand new $1 million house in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a beautiful house. If this same house was in Beverly Hills, it would cost around $4 million.

[The Bid]

Ever been to Boston?