Owners

[hurrikane]

I've been playing with something but can't find a good source for the owners of horses running today.

I can find them on the web sites in HTML but that's not too easy to import.

Anyone know of a txt source or something along those lines.

[GameTheory]

My charts/programs/workouts downloader can output the programs (from TSN) in a .csv format that might be helpful. It makes no attempt to normalize/standardize the names though, and they often appear in an altered format later in the charts (& they are often altered again after the chart has been up a few days).

Trying to automate matching of owner names from entries to a db is basically impossible because they're changing all the time and have no standard format. Also because owner names can be company name, names of individuals, or combinations of both.

Click the "website" button below for the download link to my program...

[Larry Hamilton]

Though I can get the owners every day, every track (as anyone can who downloads the TSN cheapie), you will still be faced with the problem mentioned by Game Theory. I think you could make some money if you could ever find out how many horses (insert your favorite trainer) owns a piece of. As an example, near the top of a list of owners you get this:


100 PERCENT RACING
100% RACING STABLE
100% RACING STABLE (PHIL CREEK)
100% RACING STABLE LLC
100% RACING; LLC (PHILLIP CREEK ET AL) L

Now who is what?

[hurrikane]

It is a zoo Larry. part of the missing link.

Probably impossible to automate.

Just the kind of thing a stubborn idiot like me would try. :D

[Dave Schwartz]

I agree with all of you. We found the same thing... the names are impossible to sort out. Some times they are several hundred characters long becasue of the partnerships.

Dave

[TG44]

yes, the owner name strings are problematic, and the sample sizes either too small or too large.

the angle I most like for owner handicapping is tracking when they show up at the track with a horse running.

I.E.

Owner X: at track horse win% and Roi
Owner X: not at track, horse win % and roi

(third class is Owner X: at track with group!)

good luck automating that though

[hurrikane]

game

been using your parser for some time. Very nice and again, thank you for all the work.

I know it is a big problem...and likely not worth the effort.

[VetScratch]

Larry,

A lot of the misleading ownership "synonyms" are a product of licensing procedures where each owner/partnership has to be licensed and renewed annually wherever it races. What gets handwritten on applications to identify owner/stable-name/partnership often varies from application to application.

At some tracks, a match on taxpayer ID seems to reduce the proliferation of spurious names stemming from renewals... at others, not so.

In addition, if you and I owned a horse in partnership, we could license under my taxpayer ID on one circuit, then under your ID at the next circuit, using a different partnership name at each.