Source for Harness Results Charts

[Fox]

In am trying to build a database for harness. I was going to use the trackmaster results charts but they are deficient for 2 reasons. Firstly, they do not contain exacta and trifecta payouts. Secondly, they do not contain even wps payouts for the Canadian tracks.

I know USTA has charts but the website design does not lend itself to automatically downloading them.

Any sources out there besides Trackmaster or USTA?

Thanks.

[Ray2000]

Assuming trackmaster pricing is $1.50 for a card (not per chart as their site says), then I'd say that's your best bet coupled with some data mining of exotic prices from other sites on the web. Prices where the base wager price is given.

I've never used them but USTA Pathway at a buck a card would be cheaper. I don't know if they have all NA tracks and list base wager costs but if it's just the same as the temporary free versions then fugetaboutit.

[Just a Fan]

Many harness tracks have charts on their websites that share a common format. Some tracks (Balmoral, Northfield, Maywood off the top of my head) keep a decent archive of charts online at their site, although many others keep just the past week's worth.

That probably doesn't help, though. Maybe if you call the USTA, and explain that you are a serious handicapper and you are looking to do something like this, they may be able to help you out by giving you access to some data that isn't posted online. David Carr is their stat and info guru.

I looked at the XML for the Trackmaster charts. Its funny, they have fields designated for exotics payoffs, but they are blank, at least in the 2 year old sample that is posted online. I suppose its possible that current charts now include this data.

Good luck.

http://www.ustrotting.com/contact.cfm#itd

[Fox]

Thanks for the input Ray and JAF. I'll check out USTA Pathway and/or get in touch with David Carr. Much appreciated.

[David Siegel]

The TrackMaster xml charts do have WPS payoffs for US tracks as we have found them to be reasonably accurate, but not 100% as they are, for the most part, hand entered at the track. We do get exotic payoffs for some tracks, not all, and have found them to contain a sufficiently high error rate, that combined with the lack of uniform submission by the track, that having NO DATA is better than having spotty and inaccurate data. This has been a company position from day one. If you look at the free charts on the USTA site (last 7 days), you will see exactly what I am talking about (in terms of not all tracks submitting exotic payoffs)

Standardbred Canada does not currently supply TrackMaster with payoffs, but we are working with them to get them and would hope to have that in the next several months, but cannot guarantee this.

Finally, $1.50 per RACE DAY is the correct pricing (thanks - will correct the web site) for pay-as-you-go pricing. We offer subscription pricing that is $199 per month which works out to about 50 cents per race day (there are about 400 race days in the average month), and historic bulk pricing as well for those that want years of data.

Hopefully this clears things up a bit.

David Siegel
President
TrackMaster

[lamboguy]

Dave thanks for coming on here and explaining. i use your product for harness racing and find it excellent for what i use.

keep up the good work