Caution - bad data from betfair (and others)

[weemac]

Two horses with the same name ran yesterday. Secret Potion at Newbury, and Secret Potion (Ger) at Newton Abbott.

Since betfair remove all brackets from their P&L and account statements, how is one supposed to keep accurate records? In terms of their daily CSV downloads, the answer might be to use Selection ID, but wouldn't you know it - I've been removing them daily since records began.

The other commercial source I use has brackets (where appropriate) before the race but then removes them in their results file, resulting in identical results data for the 2 horses yesterday, and a maximum IR price of 2000. These kinds of inconsistencies drive me up the wall.

Anyone else?

P.S. There are three horses called Tundra (edit: and one of them is running today!), and many more similar cases. What a mess.

[weemac]

It gets worse. Both of yesterday's Secret Potions have been given the same Selection ID by betfair. If every runner which has a country identifier after its name has been treated the same as every similarly-named horse, whether with or without a country identifier, then betfair's data records are wrong, presumably over the last 21 years.

Has anyone ever noticed this flaw or looked into it before?

[foxwood]

I agree it gets worse. I was looking for previous runs on the dogs based on selection_id and thought it looked wrong. Remembering what you said here I matched just on name for a runner and found the result below - 9 different selections ID's all at Central Park since Feb 2019 so pretty sure it must be same dog ...

Code: Select all

ghVenue		Selection ID	Name			Races
Central Park	22838702	2. Our Unique Jake	2
Central Park	23016932	3. Our Unique Jake	2
Central Park	23135835	2. Our Unique Jake	1
Central Park	23210263	2. Our Unique Jake	1
Central Park	23311654	2. Our Unique Jake	33
Central Park	23384015	1. Our Unique Jake	14
Central Park	23473057	1. Our Unique Jake	16
Central Park	28091109	1. Our Unique Jake	1
Central Park	28664553	1. Our Unique Jake	1