Leaving 11th Street

[TGJB]

Recently, Jim inquired (joke) as to the circumstances surrounding my leaving Ragozin and setting up my own shop (as Soup put it).
Among his other qualities, Alydar has the memory of an elephant, and although a portion of the archives index is corrupt, he was able to remember the title and approximate date of a post of mine on the subject. Paul did some heroic work to rescue it, so here it is, if anyone cares.  

Briefly:
I went to work for Ragozin in the 70\'s, for a little money and free use of the data. Ragozin was managing a stable for the Esposito brothers, and I was training and studying to go into that end of it. In 1976 a guy named Dennis Heard approached Ragozin to manage his stable (2 horses). Ragozin didn\'t like him, and instead sent him to me. I began to manage Dennis\'s outfit, with Ragozin getting a big piece of the profits.
I claimed a few for Dennis right away (Penn Peg, Market Forge, and Stern). They won their first six starts for us, 8 of our first 12, and we never looked back. Three years later, in 1979, we finished third in the country in wins. (It\'s also worthy of note that at almost the exact moment I took over the Heard operation, August 1976, I started winning as a bettor, having 18 straight winning months. When Len found out I was winning, my deal for free sheets for work all of a sudden became a bad idea, after years of being a good idea. He wanted 1/3 of profits, and I gave it to him - he was the only game in town.)
Anyway, at the end of 1979 Dennis and I called it quits. Since he and I had a profit sharing arrangement (and I had left all my profits in the stable) I was entitiled to quite a bit, which I took in horses, some of which was breeding stock. At this point Len figured he had me over a barrel - I was 28, the best in my field, and had no marketable skills in any other, and needed his unique data to continue. He tried to raise my rates through the roof - 10% of the capitalization of the stable (which was substantial, I think around a million) per year, plus a chunk of profits. This meant if I broke even for five years he would own half my stable. This was far more than he ever tried to get from anyone else, before or since, and it was just for data - the expertise would come from me.
Anyway, we went back and forth for a while, and eventually I walked, between Genuine Risk and Codex in May of 1980. Len knew me pretty well, and it\'s possible he may have done this to force me out since I was having far more success than he both with the stable and as a bettor.
So I went out to the Hamptons and found myself going nuts. I also found out that breeding stock eats and doesn\'t earn any purse money, and that the bloodstock market was heading south quickly. I only had one area of expertise, so in the fall of 81 I began to create a data base, initially for my own use, and that of the horseman I had developed into sheet users - Leatherbury, Forbes, and Sedlacek. Obviously, we\'ve come a long way from there.

[superfreakicus]

\"August 1976, I started winning as a bettor, having 18 straight winning months. When Len found out I was winning, my deal for free sheets for work all of a sudden became a bad idea, after years of being a good idea\"


were you using Sheets or Thorograph back then?

[TGJB]

Yeah, I was paying Ragozin a third of my profits using TG. You don\'t want to go where you\'re heading. But you will.

[HP]

aha.

[Friendly]

Thanks for the story Jerry - it was quite interesting.

I just wanted to help that other guy out who said you saw how you could improve the Ragozin numbers and set out on your own to be a competitor.

[tonyk]

Well isn\'t it an improvisation if your opinions on track variants differ?

[superfreakicus]

I think the variant he makes for each race is improvisation.

[superfreakicus]

\"I was paying Ragozin a third of my profits....\"

must\'ve been a pretty good deal, or you wouldn\'t have cut it.

maybe you should have left, and used your valuable \"expertise\" elsewhere, w/o len.

from the sound of it, you made a pretty good buck off len\'s #\'s ---- maybe it should have been a 50/50 split.

I wonder where you\'d be today, if not for len ragozin.........

[Two Bucks]

\"I wonder where you\'d be today, if not for len ragozin.........\"

Probably the same place YOU would be... some loser who doesn\'t make his own speed figures but spends his worthless life trashing someone who does.

[superfreakicus]

you think that\'s where jerry would be?
sounds about right, but I was thinking he\'d be writing scripts in his mother\'s basement.

anyway, I\'m very grateful to len ragozin, unlike some people.....

[JR]

As you stated, you were using Ragozin\'s numbers and doing pretty well with them. But when you started making your own numbers, you departed from, or at least altered the Ragozin methodology somewhat. Why? Did you, at the time you were using the Ragozin numbers, identify a flaw in them? Were you making adjustments to his figures and was it working?

[tonyk]

Well then he\' doing a real good job .You guys want it both ways ,first you claim he ripped off Ragozin ,then you say his product isn\'t worth anything .If both things are true ,then he ripped off a bad product.

[superfreakicus]

no.

first of all, I don\'t \'claim\' anything.
take a look at both products --- you\'d have to be blind not to see it.

secondly, it would appear to me that he ripped off a great product and tinkered w/it until it\'s at the point it is today.
jerry\'s ego comes before the #\'s.

[tonyk]

My mistake ,you imply.

[Friendly]

Good point teekay - you seem much smarter than the average Graphie.

Jerry only stole the intellectual property of Ragozin. How he applied it to his knock-off is the point of much debate. Many feel that Jerry massages his numbers in such a way that you get a smoother line, making it harder to toss horses and use pattern handicapping.

In addition, he takes the cheap way out at many (to be fairer, let\'s say more) tracks. He\'ll say he has someone doing live ground when that person may only be watching 1/2 the races live because they are doing another job at the track.

Jerry, JR.