With a flair for figures, Gary Crispe has helped turn RAS Technology Holdings into a global racing data powerhouse. It is no surprise he has applied the same thinking to his quest for racetrack success.
Those who work with the thoroughbred do so with a profound respect for a noble ancestry and the magnificence of an athlete matched by undeniable spirit and intelligence.
As much as Gary Crispe is enamoured with the racehorse and its influence on his life, it is his job to peel back the layers of romanticism and look for something else. Something that others can’t find.
“When I see a racehorse, I see a number,” Crispe told The Straight.
“That's the thing about it. And most people don't look at things that way, but I do.
“I mean, we're always conscious of just how a particular race will play out and what sort of rating the horse is likely to run, because it's crucial for everything we do.”
If you haven’t guessed by now, Crispe is in the business of assessing racehorses, applying a rating to performance as a numerical-based way of gazing into the future.
Crispe has harnessed his curiosity and analytical skills, which led to degrees in civil engineering and economics, to help establish a firm that is one of Australian racing’s overlooked achievers.
He is a co-founder, executive director, and board member of RAS Technology Holdings, a data company widely recognised across the industry for its Racing and Sports (RAS) website brand.
From the clichéd beginnings in a garage in suburban Canberra, Crispe has been instrumental in the rise of RAS as an industry leader in providing data and technology to racing that has a global reach.
“It was always Robert Vilkaitis as my business partner, myself and a dog in a garage at Chapman. That's the story,” Crispe said.
“I was still working full-time, but this was a labour of love and a pastime until it got to a point where it couldn't be that way anymore.
“Some people never get out of a garage, but fortunately, we managed to.”
In an industry or sport that has struggled to maintain mainstream cut-through in Australia outside of an annual spring window, RAS has defied that trend to become an ASX-listed company in 2021, now boasting a market capitalisation of $45 million.
International expansion has been a key driver, setting RAS apart from its competitors with a global workforce of almost 200 people and a presence in offices across the UK, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Singapore and the US.
Crispe’s reputation as a ratings expert and his role as the Australian figurehead for Timeform, the UK-based authority for measuring racehorse performances, opened doors that never existed before.
It was a turning point.
“When I was actually appointed head of Timeform Australia, that gave me automatic entry to a lot of places in the UK market, because the Timeform brand over there is very big,” Crispe said.
“So if you worked for Timeform, you automatically had credibility. And that helped me get to places - or get to meetings - that I probably wouldn't have otherwise got to.
“The business is a vastly different business now to when it started. Those early days were hard work because spreading the brand outside of Australia was never easy.
“But we persevered and just put our head down … and eventually you get cut-through. If you've got the right product, you get cut-through.”
Aptly, there is an international flavour - and an unsurprising methodical approach to selection - with Crispe’s latest success on the racetrack as a part-owner of the well-performed Capitalist filly Memo.
Memo is among the acceptors for the Silver Shadow Stakes, a Group 2 race at Randwick on Saturday that serves as a gateway to something even more substantial for three-year-old fillies.
Memo storms over the top of her rivals to claim the @RandSRacing Magic Night Stakes!@KPMcEvoy with a running double
— Australian Turf Club (@aus_turf_club) March 15, 2025
Congratulations to the connections and winning trainer, Peter Snowden 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/S81TKcvaLl
She promises to be in the thick of the black-type on offer without having to prove anything after being one of the better juveniles in training last season in winning the Group 3 Magic Night Stakes to complement a Magic Millions 2YO Classic placing.
Memo counts Coolmore’s retired champion shuttle stallion Fastnet Rock as her damsire on a maternal family page that includes the Kahal mare Chocolicious, a Group 1 winner as a two-year-old in South Africa.
“I made a decision in the last three or four years to buy into fillies,” Crispe said. “I've had a bit of success with North Star Lass, Amazonian Lass and Memo, of course.
“Basically, I use my own model that I've developed and again it's around Timeform ratings and the performance of stallions and progeny.
“It gives me an output. I know that the powerhouses like Darley and Coolmore are using Timeform ratings more and more as a measure of grading mares versus stallions.
“I suppose all I’ve done is take that process a little bit further with some add-ons that I’ve developed myself.”
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The algorithm rules applied to the data remain a work in progress - and strictly a personal project - but on the Crispe score of probability, Memo was a standout yearling when sold through the Newgate draft at Magic Millions for $350,000 in 2024.
“She was a very high-rating filly right from the get-go, so she was pretty much an obvious choice,” Crispe said.
“But I've had to test it with my own money first. I mean, I've got better at it. And when you put your own money up, obviously you do get better at it because you've got to get better.
“I've probably had more luck than most people have, but I don't think of it as luck. I think it's a process of fulfilling the output of the model that I've developed.”
In a sport that ebbs and flows on emotion and creates a whirl of subjective interpretation, in Crispe’s ordered world of racing logic, the numbers have never looked better.
