Phil Bull (9 April 1910 – 11 June 1989),[1] born West Yorkshire, England, was a professional gambler, racehorse owner and publisher, who founded the Timeform private handicapping system for British horseracing.
Since 1948, Timeform have produced performance ratings for every racehorse in Great Britain and, increasingly, internationally.
[2] Timeform ratings have become adopted as the British horseracing industry's unofficial, but authoritative, measure of racehorse performance.
[5] Phil Bull was born in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, the son of a miner and a schoolteacher and was educated at the local Grammar School.
The enterprise was christened Timeform because while Phil Bull's ratings' methodology focused on the probable speed a race would be run at, Dick Whitford's approach was more form driven.
[10] In 1947, Bull founded the Hollins Stud in Halifax, West Yorkshire using four mares - Lady Electra, Candida, Orienne and Anne of Essex.