RaceWatch v Racing Post: a Racing Post alternative

What are the Racing Post and RaceWatch each built for?

The Racing Post is a racing newspaper and website built around news, tipping, racecards and its own ratings. RaceWatch is a data membership built around the numbers behind each runner.

The Racing Post has been the daily paper of British racing for decades, and its website carries racecards and results alongside journalism, tipping columns and the paper's own ratings. A Racing Post+ subscription opens the premium content. RaceWatch starts from a results archive back to 1990 and turns it into free data pages and a member racecard, with no journalism and no tipping columns. The two overlap on racecards and form, and differ on almost everything else, which is why many readers use them for different jobs.

Choosing between them is mostly a question of what you read a racecard for. If you want expert opinion, interviews and a newspaper to read over breakfast, the Racing Post is built for that.

How do the Racing Post and RaceWatch compare feature by feature?

The table sets RaceWatch against the Racing Post on 13 features. Racing Post facts come from racingpost.com, its help centre and its App Store listing, checked on 23 September 2026; Not listed means the feature was not found on the pages checked.

Racing Post prices here are the in-app prices on its App Store listing: £19.95, £29.95 and £49.95 a month for the three tiers. The website subscription page could not be read on the day of checking, so web prices and offers may differ. RaceWatch features come from the member app itself, and the free data pages can be checked by anyone without an account.

How do Racing Post Ratings compare with official ratings and the RaceWatch score?

Racing Post Ratings and speed figure are the paper's own ability and speed figures. RaceWatch shows the official rating with its trend, plus a RaceWatch rating score from 0 to 100 that ranks runners within each race.

A handicap mark from the official handicapper decides the weight a horse carries, and both services show it. The Racing Post adds two figures of its own: Racing Post Ratings, which measure the level of a performance, and speed figure, which is based on race times. Both appear in the paper's big-race previews and trends pieces.

RaceWatch takes a different route. The OR Timeline tab tracks a horse's official rating over time, the Marks+ tools show the rating bands where a horse has done best, and the RaceWatch ratings score is a machine-learning estimate for each runner, with its rank in the race and the key factors behind it. RaceWatch ratings scores lock around 9am so they can be judged fairly afterwards.

What data does RaceWatch show that the Racing Post does not list?

Public racing records and results from Britain and Ireland.

Each of these answers a narrower question than a rating does. The Draw tab shows how stalls have fared at that course and distance, the Connections tab shows whether a trainer and jockey pairing wins more or less often than the market expects, and FormLines+ shows how the horses from a runner's last race have performed since. Speed adds tracking tracking, with speed profiles and race shape, for runs at British courses from 2025 onwards.

• Draw: stall heatmap by course and distance
• FormLines+: how beaten horses ran next
• Speed: speed from British courses, 2025 on
• Odds: 20+ bookmakers with the best price highlighted
• Angles: 80+ daily angles with today's qualifiers

Where does the Racing Post lead on news, tipping and editorial?

The Racing Post leads on journalism, tipsters, video replays and a digital newspaper. RaceWatch publishes data and does not publish tipping columns, race replays or a newspaper.

According to the Racing Post help centre, the Tipping tier gives access to its tipsters, the Insights tier covers cards, statistics, closing stages replays and race analysis, and the top tier adds the digital newspaper, full video replays and its journalism. For readers who value named tipsters and interviews with trainers, nothing in RaceWatch replaces that. RaceWatch's strengths sit on the other side: numbers with the window and sample size stated, so a reader can form a view of their own.

Should I switch from the Racing Post or use both?

Many form students keep a news source and add a data tool. The RaceWatch 30-day free trial lets the two run side by side on the same races before any payment.

A practical test is to pick one meeting a day for a month. Read the Racing Post card and comment as usual, then open the same races in RaceWatch and check the draw, the trainer patterns and FormLines+. After a few weeks it is usually clear whether the extra data changes how you read a race. Card details go in on step two of joining, nothing is charged until day 31, and the membership can be cancelled before then.

Keep reading

Sources checked

• Why subscribe to Racing Post+? (Racing Post help centre, updated 28 Jan 2025) · checked 2026-09-23
• Racing Post app, App Store listing (in-app Racing Post+ prices) · checked 2026-09-23
• Racing Post racecards · checked 2026-09-23
• Racing Post: Grand National trends with speed figure and Racing Post Ratings · checked 2026-09-23