Kick Start

[Pajo]

I am planning to enter a couple of years of horseracing results into a database, information such as the horses that ran, weight, jockey, odds, time etc.

I eventually want to be able to search for a specific entry in a selected field.

Now I am just requiring any tips before I start. How shoudl I enter the information? Should i put the thousands of horses into one database, or should I keep it in a few smaller databases? I could have a different database for every track?

But my intention will be to search through every entry for specific information in a selected field.

Any help or tips greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

p.s. I am a newbie to Filemaker. You probably knew that already...

[adamkarwowski]

i think you can just go with one database.you really dont need a database for each trach you can probably do it by making forms for each track. you can still search thru every feild but remeber you will take a big performance hit by indexing all the feilds. sorry i couldnt help more since i am a newbie myself.

[Pajo]

Thanks Adam.

[Guest]

Pajo... At a minimum, consider breaking this into two databases, one for the horses, the second for races. Create a relationship between horses and races. Create a script (and a button to execute the script) that allows you to find all races related to a single horse. You need a field that uniquely identifies each horse that exist in each database. You need to use FMP to enforce the uniqueness of this field. Create a script that eliminates duplicate records and run this script when needed. You could define a lookup list for tracks and jockeys in the races database.