Racing Results Data Files

Racing Form Book Results Data Files

If you ever wanted to be able to investigate horse racing data, whether this should be to study form or carry out research, then having a pool of racing results files is vital. At RacingFormBook we collate the results from each days racing across the United Kingdom and Ireland in concise but thorough CSV files. Not only do we publish these results data on a weekly basis, but we have a back catalogue of previous years. Visit the Past Racing Results page to see how simple is it is to obtain a large amount of historical data. Thereby putting you in a strong position very quickly to get up and running with your chosen project(s).

The RacingFormBook results data files come in CSV format, as this is by far the most common means of transferring data between applications and systems.

We do provide the results data in two formats and these are each know as:-

Duo Format
Single File Format

Read the following page about the Single File Format where the results are available in CSV and soon an Access database

Horse Racing Results Files Explained

In this section we look at RacingFormBook racing results files and explain what the data is and the type of information contained within them.

Why are they a ‘Duo Format’?

We call the data files ‘Duo Format’ because they are more compatible for using with databases, which was the design point for them originally.

There are two files, one which contains the conditions of the race (main)and a second which hold the information about each runner that raced in the event (details).

This format is also compatible with our horse racing application RaceHorseFormBuilder which provides a way of creating your own ratings and storing them, along with all the results in your own database.

Racing Results Data Files Contents

We now discuss the ‘Duo’ format data files which as just mentioned are made up with two CSV files. A brief description of both these files is given below and if further information is required, use this Contact Us link and I will endeavour to answer any direct questions.

File Naming Standardisation

To keep each weeks files unique they are prefixed using the following numbers:-

yy (year)
mm (month)
dd (day)

As an example 250428-250504Main.csv & 250428-250504Details.csv would represent the results for Monday 28th April to Sunday 4th May 2025 will see the data files named 200105Main.csv and 200105Details.csv.

The two files for the ‘Duo’ format are known as main.csv and details csv. Each file is explained in turn with information about their column or field content.

MAIN.CSV

This file is the conditions of a race and contains the following field or columns, for which the image below shows the typical data.

ID This is the unique RFB reference for each individual race

Course The racecourse the race took place at

Date Date that the event took place on

Time Time the race was scheduled to start

RaceDesc The race title as seen on a racecard as a race description

Class Currently this is the class allocated as a figure from 1 – 7, with 1 being the top class races and 7 the lower class ones

Age Single or a range of restrictions for a race, where the race conditions are set by the age of the horses

PrizeMoney The currency value to the winner of the event. This is by the local currency, Pound for the UK, Euro for Ireland typically

Ran Number of horses that took part and competed in a race

Distance The distance in Miles, Furlongs, Yards that the runners raced at

Going The ground that race was run over

WinTime The recorded time that a race took to run

Limit Any race that was restricted to a specific ‘Official’ handicap range or upper limit

Base Rating Used to enter the Winners rating.

This last column is also intended for onward use with our RaceHorseFormBuilder App. It can of course be left blank, but more relevant for you is that you can put your own personal rating here. The RaceHorseFormBuilder application helps rate every runner in a race and then subsequently the information is imported into a database. See here for more details

Click to expand the image of the main.csv to see the typical data.

DETAILS CSV

The Details CSV file contains the performance information regarding each individual runner in a race in the following fields/columns.

MainID Cross references to the Id column in the Main CSV file to link the two together

FPos Finishing position for each runner

DistBtn Finishing distance behind the horse which was immediately in front of them

CardNo The number on racecard allocated to each horse

HorseName The racehorse name and (country of breeding)

Draw If starting stalls used, the one a horse started in

SPFrom The ‘From’ part of the starting price

SPTo Corresponding ‘To’ part of the starting price

Age How old the horse was at the time of the race

Stone The weight in stones carried by the horse

Lbs The weight in pounds carried by the horse

Favs Used to denote the Favourite & second Favourite in the betting

Aid Any aids that the horse wore such as blinkers and if for a first time

AgeWt The Age, Weight and Aids detailed, plus Overweight and Penalties

Jockey Name of the Jockey who rode the horse

Trainer Name of the Trainer who trained the horse

Allow Any weight allowance the jockey was claiming

Or The Official handicappers rating

Comments Descriptive details on how the horse ran

Below is a screenshot example of how this data is presented after being imported into a spreadsheet, click the image to expand.

Obtaining The Duo Files and Summary

That was the overview, with details of the Duo Format results file structure.

These files are available on Monday containing the previous weeks full results from Monday to the Sunday. These files are exclusively available to Subscribing members as part of the RacingFormBook services.

Clicking this Membership Options Page link will allow you to join fellow horse racing followers and professionals as a Subscriber.

Why not obtain previous years going back to 2016 from our Past Results Data page. This vast and comprehensive amount of data will give you plenty of results to work with one download.

Once you have the information in a database it is possible to carry out all manner of queries against it. In fact we have made an Access Database available which includes extended information using our ‘Single File’ format for the data. The extra columns of information comes directly from manipulating and calculating the data using the files as described on these pages. To see this extra information please view the Single File Format page which details them and we hope give an indication as to what you can do with the Duo Format results as a starting point.

About us

Simply put RacingFormBook will help inform and assist you to find winners and enjoyment from Horse Racing. Provide historical horse racing results data.

Our mission

To further anyone’s ambition to use the information, whether this is as a point of reference, a repository for their ratings or to enable the research into racing systems.