Racing Post Web Site

[lordpercy]

Good Afternoon

I am not at all technical and have had a couple of my systems coded for me in Excel so to pick up data from the Racing Post which then allocates this information accordingly to form my ratings and tissue prices!

In the main it works very well, however if the RP make any changes to their web pages it creates spurious incorrect ratings!

As I use these ratings to trade it is imperative that the information is correct so I have to keep contacting my programmer to make the corrective adjustments which is time consuming and although very good and helpful I must really be getting on his nerves somewhat with my queries.

I have spoken to the Racing Post as they were going to allow their data to be used for a fee which I have no objection in paying, however this has not as yet been implemented and am not sure if it will be!

Has anyone therefore got any idea's how I might get around this problem e.g use of different websites to pick up the data or somehow fix the data scraped from the RP website?

Any help would be much appreciated.

[alrodopial]

Scraping will always have problems.
You can go for a paid service for the info you want.
In both cases money is needed.

[lordpercy]

Thanks for your reply, I have no problem in paying for the data it is just where do I obtain this information?

[alrodopial]

proformracing.co.uk has exporting excel ability's but is expensive.
It's not just a database ,it's a system builder.
horseracebase.com may suits you but I don't know if it can send data to excel.

What info are you gathering daily from sites into excel?

[lordpercy]

I have basically created 2 systems that looks at various data for which I award a rating based upon the criteria picked up!

Unfortunately although I do use data that can be picked up from other sources such as official ratings and trainer form etc I do use the Racing Post betting forecast and their Postmark ratings so really the Racing Post is the source of data that I need!

I don't suppose using an excel macro that there is anything that can be done when the RP changes their website as it must throw the calculations out of sync! It doesn't happen to often but unfortunately you have got to spot the change which when you are looking at a final set of ratings for every race is not always that noticeable.

Just wish that the data wouldn't change or if it does then the spreadsheet automatically alerts you that it has been updated as a couple of times I have traded using the wrong ratings because of this!

[alrodopial]

From what you say the best way is the one you do , pay for a scrapper that will extract the info you want and do it again when the site changes.