Updates

One of the most important things to do as a managing partner is to relate information to your partners. This is especially important if you have partners that are casual racing fans. You want to make them feel involved; get them excited about their horse and the game. While I only have one group right now, I do have interests in other horses as well through Star of the North Racing and VIP Internet Stables and wanted to pass along everything I'm involved in to my family, friends and potential clients. I tried to clearly spell out the horse I manage and the partnerships that I have only a minority interest in so as not to mislead anyone.

There are various methods of communication I could use. I really like the way VIP does their updates - a single e-mail with all the horses and a blurb about how each one of them is doing. It comes out once or twice a week as necessary and enables them to focus on running the stable and not 50 separate pieces of communication to each partnership group. David Miller at Star of the North sends us periodic updates when something actually happens to warrant an update. This works as well because he is timely and forthcoming with information. The PWMNBN likes to send out e-mails to each group occasionally. Sometimes, if your horse is turned out, you won't hear a thing for months. Once a horse had surgery and the partners found out about it 6 weeks later only when someone publicly asked about when the horse was running again!! One of the partners told me when I was starting this venture, "Ted, just keep everyone informed. When a horse farts, send an update. All the minority partners want is to feel involved and informed." And Ray was right. The major frustration I had as a minority partner was not knowing what the heck was going on: with the horse, with financials, with K-1s, etc. It was important to me to get the communication piece down.

So I sent out my update with all the horses on it to a wide list of people. Some of you were probably even on it. I decided to go with a modified VIP approach - an e-mail with a list of the horses and a brief update on each. I read and re-read it. I wanted to make sure I had it right. When it was ready I sent it off to a wide distribution list and I included myself on the list so I could see what it looked like to the people that received it. It binged in my inbox and I read through it and this is what I saw:

"He didn't have the best ride, was checked and stedied in the upper stretch..."

Seriously. I almost fainted. The blood rushed to my head and the world starting spinning. "Stedied" instead of Steadied? What a jackass. My big communication piece. Nothing is more bothersome to me when I read a supposedly professional e-mail that has mis-spellings on it and what did I do on my Maiden attempt? THAT VERY THING!!! What a humiliating experience. To be honest, I would not begrudge anyone who would hold that against me going forward. "Gee, I looked into Grevelis Racing and got on his mailing list and the first update I got from him had a spelling error. If this idiot can't use spell-check, how can he be a good steward of my money." I hope that's not the case and I beg forgiveness from all of you. Lesson learned: no matter how much you look something over, still hit the spell check button. In fact, perhaps BECAUSE you look something over so much, you should hit spell check.

If you want on the list, please let me know and I'll be glad to add you so you can receive the updates. I can guarantee you one thing - you won't see another mis-spelled word on it again!