Daily Racing Form History
•1894: Frank
Brunell's dream of publishing a daily newspaper
devoted exclusively to horse racing to give
horseplayers reliable information on past and
current form is realized on Nov. 17, 1894 when
the first edition of DRF - a four-page broadsheet
- is printed.
•1896: First DRF chart
book is printed. These monthly compilations
were printed until 1980 when charts were issued
in microfiche format.
•1905: Brunell revolutionizes
horseplaying when his belief that a horse's
past record was a major factor in determining
present performance leads him to compile and
print DRF's first past performances record for
each horse in a race.
•1922: Acquired by
Triangle Publications, Inc.
•1954: Joe Hirsch
joins Daily Racing Form after a four-year stint
in the Army.
•1955: Pierre Camille
Lucien Hilaire Jean Bellocq (Peb) joins The
Morning Telegraph and Daily Racing Form as staff
cartoonist.
•1971: DRF begins
publishing a broadsheet "Eastern Edition," hailed
as the first full-sized, multi-track computerized
racing newspaper ever published. The newspaper
contains 32 pages of editorial and past performances
for four racing programs at Pitt Park, Waterford
Park, Shenandoah Downs and Laurel Racecourse.
•1988: Triangle's
Walter Annenberg sells to News America, a subsidiary
of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
•1991: Purchased by
K-III Communications Corporation in June for
a reported $180 million. K-III spends $35 million
modernizing the newspaper and streamlining its
production.
•1992: DRF purchases
the assets of The Racing Times.
•1994: Celebrates
its 100th Anniversary.
•1998: DRF and Equibase
Company announce on March 12 an agreement to
end a seven-year rivalry and merge the data
gathering and storage systems of the two companies.
Alpine Capital Group and racing journalist Steven
Crist purchase DRF from Primedia, Inc. (formerly
K-III) for $40 million.
•2004: Purchased by
The Wicks Group of Companies, L.L.C. in May.
|
Daily
Racing Form, "America's Turf Authority Since
1894," was born in Chicago on Nov. 17, 1894
when it first appeared as a four-page broadsheet.
Over the last 107 years, DRF has been the country's
only daily national newspaper dedicated to the
coverage of a single major sport. DRF is the most
complex newspaper in North America, publishing
up to 2,000 unique pages of statistical and editorial
copy every day, in as many as 25 daily editions,
364 days a year (with the exception of Christmas
Day). 
