Reuse of Horses’ Names

[mickjohnson]

Since I added the speed of each horse in a race to the database last year, it has been very useful.
I ran something that would draw a graph of the speed of a horse vs its age. I found that some horses had some curious ages, like -28 and -6. On investigation I found that there were some horses that ‘Died as a 4-y-o’, had their name reused in a later foaled horse. The entry in the horse registry changed the older horse’s name by adding a I to the end of its name, or II if it had been used twice. e.g Marengo(GB) foaled 2011, and Marengo I(GB) in 1994, although my records show Marengo I(GB) as a 20 year old and is still alive.
I changed 5300 races since 1994 and I run my checks daily and get three or four horses each week that need checking. Some just have an incorrect foaling date but most are ‘new’ horses with the same name as an existing, older horse. I can’t find a way of automating it yet as I have to check all the pedigree information to see if it is a new horse or an old one with changes to it’s sex or ownership/trainer.
Mick Johnson

[TheBluesBrother]

Hi Mick,

The only way to solve the problems with the horses names is to identify them by their ID number.

I have been building a complete database for the French racing scene, and yesterday there was 162 runners and I collected the data in 30 seconds, which shows breeding, trainers, owners and jockeys etc.

Here is an example of 1 of the 3 files that are collected daily:
https://web.cloud.virginmedia.com/?shar … 47b7afc9a4

The Scraper I use was written by a contact who lives in Paris

[mickjohnson]

I get my results and declaration data daily from a company that supplies the newspapers and the horse number is not included. I have loads of screen scraping stuff running on my Linux servers but none get that info either.
Mick Johnson

[Venusian]

There are no fewer than 30 Marengos on the http://www.pedigreequery.com/ database.

[moehat]

Does it go back to Napoleon?

[Nathan Hughes]

I wouldn’t name my horse Marengo.

Blackbeard to conquer the World

[mickjohnson]

It does go back to Napoleon!
I only use 20 years data to analyse going corrections and course/distance coefficients so the way I’m doing it now is manageable. The ‘new’ horses, by definition, have little form so will probably not be assessed in a future race.
I use recent data on speed, adjusted for going, weight, etc., so pedigree will effect the posible performance of a horse but I measure the actual performance.

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