Studying Form

I have RP Ultimate and RTV so use the RP for detailed results + the BHA &HRI websites for referencing current official ratings, but mainly race replays as a visual aid to studying form.
 
Top Tipster said:
Whats the official formbook?
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The official form book is produced by Raceform Ltd and is what the RP feeds from for its results and comments.

I'm not sure if they produce the paper hard copy any more. I used to subscribe to it (did so for over 20 years ,Flat and Jumps) but gave up due to the unreliability of Royal Mail (at least that was the excuse Raceform always used) when it didn't arrive sometimes until the Monday after the weekend for which I needed it.

It also didn't include Irish results.

It became very expensive too.

I think maybe they switched to digital-only a number of years ago, calling it 'Raceform Interactive' but it is ridiculously expensive. I suppose racing professionals can list it as tax-deductible but it was beyond even a moderately well paid promoted teacher like me. I couldn't get used to the digital format as it required having umpteen windows open at one time and gave up after one season, reverting to buying the Weekender (sister paper of the Racing Post) as it allowed me to spread it out on the table, seeing several meetings at once and allowing me to annotate my own form ratings and symbols and add my own time ratings, sometimes from two or three different calculations.

The hard copy book also became very unwieldy. They changed from very high quality paper - the type you would find in missals etc - to ordinary paper, pretty much doubling the size of the volumes, as a cost-cutting measure.

The Weekender also includes Irish racing. It makes for a bigger compilation of the form through the year but it suits my way of working. I like to be able to feel the paper, turn pages back and forth, add my own stuff, etc. It's bulky for filing and storing and is a constant source of frustration for Mrs O but she has learned to live with it/me.

I had the RP online for a while too (when it was on special offer) and I liked its ratings calculation facility which I often used to save me time on my calculator (although I still do a lot of it in my head) and access to stats etc but the full price is expensive at something like £35 per month which for a retired person is just a bit hefty on top of the Weekender at touching £4 per week and RTV on offer at £12 per month. For that kind of money I'd be wanting my hole from Charlotte Hawkins as well.

Race replays, where available for free, are very useful but I tend to record the council-TV programmes and delete them later.
 
Use the RP as the most comprhensive of databases, but prefer ATR replays as they're ad-free and most versatile of the replay sites.
Used to use Raceform extensively, but gave it up when some idiot editor dished their outstanding speed figures.
 
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Does anyone remember something called The Lazy Punters Black Book? An internet chum many years ago told me about it (I used to be on an aol betting forum).
 
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