Is it better to use runner_id or name to uniquely identify a horse in the SmartForm Racing Database?

Question

Some names in historic_runners are associated with two distinct runner_ids, e.g., Angel Song has runner_ids 1313428 and 1410461 but these two runner_ids appear to refer to the same horse (identical sire_name, dam_name, owner, trainer, etc.).  Is it better to use runner_id or name to uniquely identify a horse in the SmartForm Racinge Datebase?

Answer 1

Some runner names erroneously have 2 ids - this problem no longer occurs but did with some of the older historic data.  Future releases of the historic data will also purge this problem. If you want to be absolutely sure when querying older data use the "name" field and combine it with "sire_name".