Timeform giving free access to form archive for next two weeks
From Friday 19 November until Sunday 5 December, Timeform will be opening its online archive form to all registered customers, and making their horse, jockey and trainer profiles completely free to read and search.
Timeform is unique in the horse racing industry. Whilst other form services offer something similar on the surface, Timeform is the only firm in the business using human analysts to watch, assess and report on the performance of every horse, in every race in the UK and Ireland (plus significant races overseas) – written and ready to view by the following day.
So far in 2021, around 220k performances have been analysed manually by Timeform’s race reporters.
Millions of these reports, stretching back up to 25 years, make up one of the most comprehensive, detailed and widely-respected archives of its kind on the planet. And until Sunday 5 December, you’ll be able to access all of it, completely free. You just need to register a free Timeform account, and log in.
Not registered with Timeform? Get £10 to spend at timeform.com when you sign up free with code: UNLOCK21SL >
What’s on offer?
Search for a horse’s name and you’ll be able to read every report for every previous performance, with a comment describing what the horse did in the race. However, Timeform’s reporters do more than simply relay what happened. They provide excellent insight and context, hence, you might also find any of the following:
- Analysis of the merit of the performance in context of the horse’s known ability
- How a performance compares to general standards at the meeting, in the division, in past renewals or at the horse’s likely next engagement
- Whether the horse gave indication of further potential, and to what extent
- What races, general or specific, the horse is likely to encounter next
- Whether the horse is deemed likely to improve or struggle in the foreseeable future
You’ll also find a series of figures above each comment, including race and going description, betting information and Timeform data for the performance including Timeform rating, allocated timefigure, the race’s finishing speed (in percentage proportion to the speed of the rest of the race) and in-play symbols giving more detail on how the horse ran.
Why is it useful?
Timeform comments and ratings allow you to get an expert reading for every previous race a horse has run, at-a-glance, and can tell you more than form figures or computer-generated comments ever could – and often even more than watching the replay could, given there is the benefit of the stopwatch to provide context.
Quite simply, if you want to know if a horse has run well or badly of late, and whether there is more to the performance than meets the eye, you need only consult their Timeform horse profile.
What should I look for?
You can often get an immediate assessment of a horse’s preferred distance and going type, and the standard of the recent form, by reading the Premium Horse Comment at the top of the profile. However, if there’s a race the horse is entered for, you can go back through the reports to find further clues on how well-suited, or well-treated, they may be.
Take the example of recent 9/1 Paddy Power Gold Cup winner Midnight Shadow, the report for which you can read below. Ahead of Midnight Shadow’s appearance at Cheltenham on 13 November, our reporter had marked him as a ‘Horse In Focus’ (a horse deemed likely to be of particular interest on their next appearance, flagged up in premium form to all Timeform subscribers, and to Race Card purchasers). You can see why, when looking at the preceding comment for Midnight Shadow’s performance in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree on 24 October, our reporter asserting that “he’ll surely be worth considering whatever handicap he turns up in next”.
What else is included?
As mentioned, it’s not just horse form you’ll be able to view. Timeform have also temporarily unlocked their jockey and trainer profiles, both featuring exclusive Timeform run-to-form data, to give you a more revealing measure of reliability and prowess than results, strike rates or P&L alone. As well as results and entries, and stats by course, season and race type, head to the dashboard for some visuals on run-to-form stats.
For jockeys you’ll see how well they perform broken down by race position, and for trainers you’ll see the trainer form graph: the run-to-form rate of their string plotted throughout the season. Take Nicky Henderson’s trainer form: you can clearly see that in recent seasons his yard has reached the peak of its powers around December, so his horses can reasonably be expected to be coming to the boil right around now.
Want to look a little further back? With comments and profiles stretching back to the mid-90s in the UK and 2008 for Irish racing, there’s plenty on the greats of yesteryear, such as Galileo, Frankel and Kauto Star.
How do I sign up?
To access all Timeform’s profiles until midnight on 4 December (Betfair Tingle Creek Saturday), you simply need to register a Timeform account, and log in. From there you can click or search for the name of any horse, jockey or trainer, to view their profile.
It’s completely free, and if you’re yet to register, you can use the code UNLOCK21SL to get £10 free credit – enough to try Timeform’s full Race Passes subscription for 24 hours. If you like it, you can subscribe for around £1 a day.
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