Finding Horses on the Net
Dateline: 02/23/98
I probably get "How can I find out where Old Dobbin is now and maybe his lifetime past performances?" or "I am looking for info on the sire Old Dobbin, can you help me?" more than any other questions. Since I don't do anything about this that anyone else can't do, I decided a page with instructions for doing this yourself was in order. In most cases you can indeed find and perhaps keep track of the horse you are interested in.
First, unless the horse you seek is a Thoroughbred currently racing in stakes company at one of the few tracks that give free past performance for their stakes races, you will not get free PPs online anywhere. There are some pay services that offer past performances for Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds but no free ones.
Thoroughbreds are the easiest to find. There is much more info out on the web about them and more services for getting PPs and pedigrees. Standardbreds are not quite as easy but there are several resources for them as well. Quarter horses and Arabians each only have one place for finding information and they are both dial-up only pay services. Of course you can always make a post to my bulletin board and hope a fellow reader has information on where they are. In most cases you will get an answer as there are a large number of people that pass through each week.
Thoroughbreds
If you are looking for a specific horse you know is still racing, your first step should be to register for Stable Mail and put him/her on your list. This is a free service from the Daily Racing Form which will e-mail you whenever the horse is entered in a race in the US or works out. The workouts will probably convert to a pay service at some point but the entries will always be free. If the horse is no longer racing, your task will be much harder. If the horse has gone on to be a sire, you should be able to find him in one of the online stallion registers. BRIS updates theirs continuously so it is usually the most up-to-date and although they do require you register to use it the register is free. If it is a mare, you will have to get very lucky searching the sales to find her if you don't want to pay for a broodmare report on her. Retired geldings are next to impossible if the horse was not sold with papers to make the ownership info available via the Jockey Club for a fee.Standardbreds
Alas there is no equivalent to Stable Mail for the standardbreds. There is a list of all current entries by horse name for the US which can help but you have to check it daily yourself. There is no online stallion register either. There are limited online pedigree references which may help, but for stallion or mare information you will most likely have to use the USTA's dial-up service. The USTA should also be able to look up the current owner for geldings sold with papers as well, but they didn't list it in the services they offer.
Other Breeds
For the Arabians and the Quarter Horses you only have their breed registry dial-up services to go to for info. These are of course pay services and I don't have a listing of exactly what they offer, but current records of horses in training, stallion info, and broodmare produce records are fairly standard offerings. There should also be some means of looking up who currently holds the papers on a horse but it is likely to be a voice call.Well, that should give you somewhere to start from, so happy hunting and on to the page of Links for Finding Horses.
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Photograph by author.
