Racing Post

Shadow Leader

Shadow Leader

At the Start
Joined
Nov 9, 2003
Messages
9,884
Time for a moan about the Racing Post website - it's a bloody con. I've just clicked on FIVE new stories in a row and been told they're viewable only by members of their member's club. I'm particularly pissed off having just forked out £2 for the bloody paper - I'm not paying more to use their crappy website as well!

It's long been the case that 'business matters' ie stuff about the racing industry has been viewable by members only but this is the first time I've seen that heading be expanded to include "News about the issues, events and personalities in the racing and betting industry." It's a bloody con so far as I'm concerned - quite clearly whilst hiking up the price of the paper they've decided to also make as much of their website subscription-only as they can. Why even bother with the website in that case?

The increase in cost of the paper was enough to swallow - and I'm not having any of this shite about the massive increases in newsprint being the issue since pretty much every other DAILY newspaper can survive selling their papers at less than half the price that the Racing Post costs. I only buy it a few times a week now, especially since most of the 'content' is tripe, nowadays they seem to want to fill pages with column after column of the 'reader's view' - I don't want to know what those bloody idiots think, let alone do I want to pay for the privilege.
 
Here here - the website is an absolute joke - ATR, RUK, Sporting Life are infinitely better anyway. I believe the RP's bankers are having an input and may be to blame for a lot of this.
 
Completely agree, Shadz. I was amazed to find out that mere reports on jockey's broken fingers, etc. had to be paid for before you could find out when the strapping would come off - pretty much everything now has to be paid for, which I just won't do. I believe, as OTB says, the other racing sites offer as much info and at no cost. I use the Sporty Life for race replays, which are brill, and free. If the RP goes bust, it'll be because it overstepped the mark pricewise.
 
On The Bridle said:
Here here - the website is an absolute joke - ATR, RUK, Sporting Life are infinitely better anyway. I believe the RP's bankers are having an input and may be to blame for a lot of this.
Click to expand...

this is ridiculous
RP is the best web of those by miles,
another thing is you dont want to pay


by the way
the money they charge is really good value, in fact I wouldbe prepared to pay much morethan I do.
 
After you've already forked out £2 for a paper plumped out with shit texts from clueless Betfair-forumesque punters?!
 
Is that £2 for every day? I remember weekends used to be more expensive than weekdays. Either way that's bloody expensive.
 
Not to mention the fact that use of the website has now increased in price for the second time since Christmas.

The only reason I use it is for the database and the fact that membership allows me to store my own ratings.

I prefer the Sporting Life for news and racecard as they are quicker to change the cards and post news. I also find that the SL gives a lot more of what connections say than the RP does. The RP gives a line or two, SL gives almost the whole conversation.
 
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There is plenty of stuff you get in the paper that you don't get on the web Suny - and vice-versa. They've got us over a barrel, being the only daily racing paper. They want people to pay for both web and paper so withhold bits from each in an attempt to drive people to buying both.
 
Now even The Weekender has less competition as it has now incorporated Raceform Update. The only competitor in the weekly market now is the Outlook, which probably will hold its own as it includes football.

The good thing about incorporating Update is that we now get a variety of different writers, including Simon Holt.
 
Wikiform. A wikipedia-style resource for race cards where the user-community maintains racecards with data that is in the public domain but which access to is in some regard controlled (Official rating, Timeform, topspeed, beyer etc.) Past performances for horses could be user-created.

Revenue through integration with bookmakers/broadcasters as per Racing Post, but with massively reduced overheads. Accuracy could potentially be compromised - more-so in the early days when a more hand-on moderation would be required - but self-policing validation system a la Wikipedia would be in place.

Someone bung me a £100k in seed capital and I'll make it so.
 
Anyone having problems with the website since it was upgraded last week?

I log in, take ages to get to the card that I want, click on a horse, click on relevant race - all very slow.

The problem occurs when closing any of the pop-up pages. It just says "programme not responding" and shuts down the whole internet connection.

In the results section, flicking from one race to another at the same meeting takes absolutely ages and if I try to hurry things up by closing that race and going back to the result sheet, I get the same response as above.

Frustrating.
 
I've had the "programme not responding" problem a few times, but apart from that it's going ok. I hadn't realised there was an upgrade.
 
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