Today we will be going over the Daily Racing Form which is as American as apple pie, and as old as apples! The Daily Racing Form has been for many years singularly the only reference that is used by racing bettors to help with Kentucky Oaks and Derby picks and predictions. Within its hallowed pages lies not only the history of a horse, or statistics on betting, but the history of the racing industry in the United States.
Consistently since 1896 when the Racing Form began with a mere four pages in Chicago, they have published racing stats. Luckily for those of us who are fascinated by horse lineage and racing statistics, in 2007 the Keeneland Association and the University of Kentucky, formed a partnership to develop a preservation plan for the Keeneland Association’s nearly complete collection of the Daily Racing Form.
With funding from Keeneland and research by the University of Kentucky Libraries, a research program was started that perused old Daily Racing Form volumes from 1896 through 1991, to develop the best approach to converting the fragile newspapers into a searchable digital archive. Not only do the students at the University who are technologically savvy get to do some interesting research on history of horses and racing, they will also be instrumental in making sure that the collection will be saved for future generations of horse lovers.
The preservation process involves lots of careful work separating the bound newspaper books into separate pages and carefully analyzing, then scanning the paper. Some of the pages are very fragile especially those from the 1930s through the 1950s. The end result is that today, you are able to search and retrieve an exact replica of any page of the Daily Racing Form on your computer. You may also be able to predict the winner of the next jewel in the crown from the comfort of your home!