Horse Racing News

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• horse_racing_news_mcp_server.py:81-112 (handler)

  The main handler function for the 'get_horse_racing_news' tool. Registered via @mcp.tool() decorator. Validates input limit, fetches and parses RSS feed using helper function, limits results, and returns structured dictionary with feed info and news stories.

  @mcp.tool()
  def get_horse_racing_news(limit: int = 10) -> Dict[str, Any]:
      """
      Fetch the latest horse racing news from Thoroughbred Daily News.
      
      Args:
          limit: Maximum number of stories to return (default: 10, max: 50)
      
      Returns:
          Dictionary containing feed information and list of news stories
      """
      # Validate limit parameter
      if limit < 1:
          limit = 1
      elif limit > 50:
          limit = 50
      
      rss_url = "https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/feed/"
      
      result = parse_rss_feed(rss_url)
      
      # If there was an error, return it
      if "error" in result:
          return result
      
      # Limit the number of stories returned
      if "stories" in result and len(result["stories"]) > limit:
          result["stories"] = result["stories"][:limit]
          result["total_stories"] = len(result["stories"])
          result["note"] = f"Limited to {limit} stories (use limit parameter to adjust)"
      
      return result

• horse_racing_news_mcp_server.py:28-79 (helper)

  Core helper function that fetches RSS feed from given URL, parses XML, extracts feed metadata and story items, cleans content using clean_html, and structures the data or handles errors.

  def parse_rss_feed(url: str) -> Dict[str, Any]:
      """Fetch and parse RSS feed, returning structured data."""
      try:
          # Fetch the RSS feed
          response = requests.get(url, timeout=10)
          response.raise_for_status()
          
          # Parse the XML
          root = ET.fromstring(response.content)
          
          # Find the channel element
          channel = root.find('channel')
          if channel is None:
              return {"error": "Could not find channel element in RSS feed"}
          
          # Extract feed metadata
          feed_info = {
              "title": channel.find('title').text if channel.find('title') is not None else "N/A",
              "description": channel.find('description').text if channel.find('description') is not None else "N/A",
              "link": channel.find('link').text if channel.find('link') is not None else "N/A"
          }
          
          # Find all item elements
          items = channel.findall('item')
          
          stories = []
          for item in items:
              title = item.find('title')
              description = item.find('description')
              link = item.find('link')
              pub_date = item.find('pubDate')
              
              story = {
                  "title": clean_html(title.text) if title is not None else "No title available",
                  "content": clean_html(description.text) if description is not None else "No content available",
                  "link": link.text if link is not None else "No link available",
                  "published": pub_date.text if pub_date is not None else "No date available"
              }
              stories.append(story)
          
          return {
              "feed_info": feed_info,
              "stories": stories,
              "total_stories": len(stories)
          }
      
      except requests.RequestException as e:
          return {"error": f"Error fetching RSS feed: {str(e)}"}
      except ET.ParseError as e:
          return {"error": f"Error parsing XML: {str(e)}"}
      except Exception as e:
          return {"error": f"Unexpected error: {str(e)}"}

• horse_racing_news_mcp_server.py:11-26 (helper)

  Utility helper to clean HTML tags, decode entities, and normalize whitespace from text extracted from RSS descriptions and titles.

  def clean_html(text: str) -> str:
      """Remove HTML tags and decode HTML entities from text."""
      if not text:
          return ""
      
      # Remove HTML tags
      clean = re.compile('<.*?>')
      text = re.sub(clean, '', text)
      
      # Decode HTML entities
      text = unescape(text)
      
      # Clean up extra whitespace
      text = ' '.join(text.split())
      
      return text

• horse_racing_news_mcp_server.py:81-81 (registration)

  The @mcp.tool() decorator registers the get_horse_racing_news function as an MCP tool.

  @mcp.tool()