A resque job with retry on failure, dead simple. Needs resque-schedule plugin. the only caveat is that the first attempt is in the "events" queue, whereas retries are only visible in Delayed tab.

resque_schedule_retry_job.rb

class GetEventResult

  @queue = :events

  def self.perform(event_id, attempt=0)
    event = Event.find(event_id)
    Rails.logger.info "Fetching results for event ##{event.id} (#{event.name})..."
    begin
      results = EventImporter.new(event.datetime.to_date).get_results(event)
    rescue OpenURI::HTTPError 
      # let's reschedule the job if attempts < 30
      if attempt < 30
        Rails.logger.info "Results not ready fo event ##{event.id} (#{event.name}), re-scheduling (attempt ##{attempt}/30)..."
        Resque.enqueue_at(Time.now+1.minute, self, event.id, attempt+1)
        # You can also do exponential back off, thanks to bvandenbos :
        # Resque.enqueue_at((1 * (attempt ** 1.7)).to_i.minutes.from_now, self, event.id, attempt+1)
      else
        raise "Max attempts reached"
      end
    else
      event.process_results!(results)
      Rails.logger.info "Results for event ##{event.id} (#{event.name}) : #{results}"
    end
  end
end