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Trojan Horse Reviews

Friday, February 25th, 2011 Lenders No Comments

Horse Racing: Court Ruling Wrecks Bhb Plan for Funding

The British Horseracing Board’s plans for the future funding of the sport appeared to be in tatters last night after the European Court of Justice ruled that the board does not have the right to charge bookmakers for the use of crucial pre-race data, such as the names of the runners and riders taking part.

The court’s decision is a crippling setback for the governing body, and may also call into question the long-term future of the board itself.

The ruling, at the end of a four-year case brought by the BHB against the bookmaker William Hill, completely undermines the board’s attempt to replace the statutory Levy Board, which collects money from bookmakers’ profits, with a commercial system for funding the sport from betting.

The sale of pre-race data, principally to bookmakers, is the fundamental idea behind the BHB’s blueprint for the funding of racing in the 21st century. Enthusiastically championed by Peter Savill, its former chairman, data-licensing was expected to set the sport free from the shackles of government, as represented by the Levy Board, and allow racing to demand a “fair market price” for its product from the global betting industry.

That price was expected to well exceed £100m a year. The effect of yesterday’s ruling, however, is that the board’s database is all but worthless. This clearly has major implications, not just for the BHB but also for racing as a whole.

The loss of their data rights inevitably raises the question of whether the board now has any meaningful role left to fulfil. The levy system for the sport’s funding, meanwhile, has generally allowed bookmakers to pay as little to racing as they can get away with, rather than the maximum that they can afford.

The sale of data rights was supposed to turn that equation around. Instead, it seems likely that the government will be forced to extend the Levy Board’s existence well beyond its provisional closure date of September 30, 2006. Those in racing who were looking forward to a massive cash injection in the post-levy era seem certain to be disappointed.

At earlier stages of the case in question, both the English high court and the appeal court had sided with the sport’s administrators and ruled that the use of runners’ names on William Hill’s website was an infringement of the board’s database rights.

However, the European court has taken a much narrower view of what constitutes a database. Its ruling – which cannot be appealed – is that by using only a small part of the BHB’s database, albeit on a daily basis, William Hill was not substantially infringing the board’s rights.

“I would say it’s a victory for common sense,” David Harding, Hill’s chief executive, said. “I always wrestled with the notion that a small piece of data from a database that cost £4m a year to run could suddenly be worth £100m.

“It came completely out of left field when we were suddenly sued as a result of using a list of runners on our website. It has always been our view that the European Database Directive is designed to protect databases as a whole, and not every last piece of information they contain, and the court has endorsed that view.”

Dan Tench, a partner in the media litigation department of the law firm Olswang, said that yesterday’s ruling “could not be more serious” for the racing industry.

“It’s hugely significant,” Tench said. “The BHB was aggressively seeking to expand their revenue stream by exploiting what they thought were monopoly rights over data, and that’s just evaporated.

“Nor does it seem likely that there is anything in our own copyright law to help them, because racing data is not sufficiently contrived to give you a copyright. If people are ringing up to put a horse into the 2.30 at Kempton, all the BHB is doing is compiling the data, and it can’t really be said they created it in the first place.

“The only hope they have now [of exploiting data rights] is a change in the law, and that would have to happen at EU level, which would take years.”

While the BHB’s directors gathered last night to discuss their reaction to the ruling, some in the industry who dealt with the board over the issue of data payments could not contain their delight.

“It couldn’t have happened to a more aggressive and unpleasant bunch of people,” one specialist in the area said. “They’ve really been throwing their weight around, and now they’ve had their comeuppance.”

Papers win in football row, page 27

Tags: Court, Funding, horse, Plan, Racing, Ruling, Wrecks

Friday, January 14th, 2011 Grants No Comments

Horse Racing: Arrest of Rakti’s Owner in America

Gary Tanaka, the owner of Rakti and one of the leading players in international Flat racing, is being held without bail by American authorities after being accused of stealing funds from clients of his investment company to purchase at least three racehorses.

Tanaka does not buy bloodstock at the annual yearling sales, preferring instead to purchase horses that are already in training. In addition to Rakti, who has won five Group One events in his career to date, he owned Dernier Empereur, the 1994 Champion Stakes winner, and the top milers Keltos and Docksider. He also owned Golden Apples, the winner of several top races in America.

Alberto Vilar, Tanaka’s partner in Amerindo Investment Advisors Inc, which is based in New York, has also been arrested and charged separately with stealing $5m in client funds.

Michael Jarvis, the trainer of Rakti, said yesterday that he had no knowledge of Tanaka’s arrest, or how it might affect plans for his stable star, who is due to run next at Royal Ascot at York.

Cyrlight, the best chaser in France and a contender for the King George VI Chase at Christmas, was beaten for only the second time in his career yesterday, when second to outsider Rock And Palm in the Prix la Barka at Auteuil. Rule Supreme, from Willie Mullins’ yard in Ireland, stayed on to finish a creditable third.

Tags: America, Arrest, horse, Owner, Racing, Rakti's

Monday, October 25th, 2010 Grants No Comments

Student loan consolidation: look this gift horse in the mouth. Part I

Get Life Skills – Not Student Loans

Student loans? Who needs them? Take charge of your money for the rest of your life.

Part I (This article)

Part II Student loan consolidation has big benefits for losers

Part III Idea beats student loan consolidation and creates a winning mindset.

You’ll never need student loans with these ideas.

1.Grants in place of student loans – no repayments

2. Part time earning decreases student loans

3. Economizing (builds life skills) avoids some student loans

1. Grants – Supreme way to avoid student loans

A grant is a gift of money that you don’t have to repay. Isn’t a $50000 grant better than taking out student loans every year for four or five years?

There is a club that keeps its members abreast of grants that they might use. You can avoid student loans. These grants aren’t confined to education so you aren’t confined to avoiding student loans. If you get a grant, save actively to build a nest egg and the right mindset.

2. Part Time Earning

There are lots of ways for you to work your way through college. What I like is that they encourage an aggressive “go and get it” mindset. Student loans encourage the “wait for it to come to me” mindset.

I have details of how a teenage girl made a profitable website. She’ll never need student loans!

One girl runs dogs. That’s right, she runs for half an hour with 4 dogs that need lots of exercise, then picks up the next 4 dogs.

Don’t lose sight of your target. You want to avoid student loans, not impress your friends with how much you can spend.

3. Economizing

I had a grant for University. Fellow students complained their student loans or college grants were too small. I saved money from the grant by economizing.

A dollar saved is four dollars earned. You pay back about twice as much as you borrow, with money from which the IRS has stolen 50%. So each dollar you save avoids earning four.

You can economize on these and have better health.

1. Food

2. Lodgings

3. Health

4. Transport

5. Social life

1. Food.

Learn to cook. You’re at the mercy of food suppliers until you can cook. One student got into the news because student loans only covered tinned dog-food for him to eat. That’s too expensive! I’m cooking my own food and eating well on about$17 per week.

2. Lodgings

I can only suggest that you shop around. Remember that $20 saved per week is $1000 saved from your student loans each year even without interest payments.

3. Health

The damage you do to your body adds up over your lifetime, so it’s a good idea to stay healthy. What has that to do with student loans?

It turns out that fast food is bad for your health, and so are most processed foods, and cooking your own food means that you can avoid trans-fatty acids, sugar, and all the other things that cause obesity. Curry, broccoli, tomatoes, garlic, brazil nuts, and cabbage among other things fight cancer. And they all make less demands on student loans.

4. Transport

Make enquiries. How much would you save from your student loans by buying a bike instead of a car? Would public transport be better? Would walking or running for exercise be even better? How much would it cramp your style for dating?

Remember, buying a car with a student loan involves not only repayments, but fuel and oil, repairs, licensing, and depreciation. I traveled 2 hrs/day on my pushbike getting exercise and no college loans.

5. Social Life

Look for free pastimes. If your friends aren’t interested in ways to avoid college loans perhaps you have the wrong friends.

If you finish study at 25 and work till 60 that gives you a working life of 35 years. So a 25 year student loan takes a big chunk out of your life, even if you are never unemployed.

And that’s before you take out a mortgage!

Other ways to economize

Buy second-hand whenever possible – even your textbooks. Clothes from the Salvation Army are cheap. Use eBay, but don’t buy anything you don’t need. My first boss said I’d furnished my house for less than he spent on his bedroom.

Negotiate – Important for second hand, even more for new goods. When you go in to buy a new fridge, the attendant waits to see if you’re stupid enough to pay the price tag, or ask for a discount.

Remember a dollar saved is four dollars in student loans that you won’t have to pay back.

Read more about these methods Ian has tried. You could be a millionaire with the right mindset.
http://studying-techniques.com/student-loans.html

http://studying-techniques.com/student-loan-consolidation.html

Student Loans
Read all the student loans details in expanded part I

Tags: Consolidation, Gift, horse, Loan, look, mouth., Part, Student, This

Friday, July 30th, 2010 Grants No Comments