If you find yourself with a hunch this spring – while sitting under the brim of a particularly fancy hat – make sure to reach for the Daily Racing Form (DRF) before handing over next month’s rent at the teller counter.
First published as a 4-page newspaper in Chicago in 1894, the DRF is the world’s go-to source for news and data on thoroughbred horse racing, with information on horses’ pedigrees, race experiences, and even morning workout times.
And if you have a peculiarly historical hunch – about the unlikely outcome of the 1913 Kentucky Derby, for example – you’ve come to the right place. That’s because UK Libraries has recently added the Daily Racing Form Archives to its digital collections, allowing users to explore the fascinating history of thoroughbred horse racing in incredibly granular detail.
The archive is a unique digital platform that offers a searchable selection of issues of the DRF from the 1890s through the 1950s.
The issues are digitized from the Daily Racing Form Collection at the Keeneland Library – a massive collection made up of nearly 3,700 hardbound folio volumes representing more than 113 years of racing history.
"There's no collection like it anywhere in the world," Nick Nicholson, the former president of the Keeneland Association said in a 2011 article on the collection’s early digitization efforts. "Most of the volumes [at Keeneland Library] are the sole surviving copy."
UK Libraries partnered with the Keeneland Association in 2007 to develop a preservation plan for the Keeneland Library’s incredible collection, when a pilot project determined the best approach to the herculean effort of digitizing close to 11 million total pages. The process involves first carefully taking apart the bound volumes, employing a combination of microfilm and digital imaging, and then utilizing software programs to create searchable text.
UK Libraries continues to research different methods to develop an interface to address the unique look and feel of the DRF as its physical layout, news coverage, statistical data, and page count evolved from 1894 to the present. The DRF was a simple 4-page broadsheet in the late 19th century, but by the 1990s was publishing 2,000 pages daily in multiple editions, serving audiences around the world.
Work on the project is on-going, so keep your hunches coming – and as the racing season gets charging with the Keeneland Spring Meet this month, thunder your digital hooves through an unparalleled collection of its daily history.
