The IFHA is the single representative body for the global racing industry with membership comprising the racing authorities in over 50 countries, including all the main racing nations. It was formally established in 1993 to harmonize the rules of member countries regarding breeding and racing in order to maintain the integrity of each and protect the welfare of industry participants both human and equine. It now also elaborates common principles on wagering.

The IFHA has begin publishing the results of the world’s most important races on its website.

Who won the Kentucky Derby in 2004? Who was runner up in the Hong Kong Cup this year? Which jockey scored best at the main jump races in the UK in 2005? These and many more data on all the main races in each country, classified as Group I, II or III races, can from now on be obtained from one single source.

“We are very proud of this new feature”, explained Louis Romanet, IFHA President, “and we are exited to promote racing this way. Racing is becoming more and more international, not only by cross-border participation of horses and jockeys, but also by the worldwide increase in simulcasting. As this trend is likely going to continue, we believe our database is a just response to a growing need for international racing information by media, racing officials and fans.”

Carl Hamilton of The Jockey Club Information Systems in Kentucky has been in charge of the technical development of this new service. “It is a considerable task to gather information from so many different countries”, explained Hamilton, “Different data elements are collected and stored by various countries, therefore we have limited our global data to the first three finishers of a race - horses and jockeys - and some basic descriptive data regarding the race... We intend to update results each week. In addition, we also provide all the fixtures for 2006.”

“The Results & Fixtures Database has to be seen in conjunction with our World Thoroughbred Racehorse Rankings”, added IFHA Executive Director Maurits Bruggink, “Seen together, they will allow our visitors to better assess the performance of horses throughout the year.” Bruggink also emphasized that “..Despite making this historic data public, racing maintains its existing claims on intellectual property rights on race data.”