Welcome to the World of Horseracing

Record of the blog selections

Between March 2010 and April 2017, this blog recommended wagers on 520 individual races on Jump Racing in the UK, resulting in a PROFIT of £1,525.39 on cumulative stakes of £5,726 - this is equivalent to a Return On Investment of 26.60%.

THIS IS A BOOKIES ADVERT FREE ZONE

There are NO affiliate links on this site to bookies from whom the author receives over 30% of the stakes from your lost wagers.ising selections on which to wager, since March 2010.

Thursday 13 May 2010

The study of form

There was an interesting article written by Tom Segal of the Racing Post (published in the Weekender) were he compared the difference between the form student style of selection (who he describes as the scientists), and those who use intuition (the artists). He didn’t think that either method was better than the other and how you go about selection is down to the sort of person you are.

I tend to fall between both stools. If I have enough form to go on (and for a lot of races, the amount of form available is scarce) then I will study each horse one-by-one assessing going preferences, trip, and if the horse prefers the course. Rightly or wrongly, I also use as a basis for form assessment the ratings in the RP. I consider them consistent enough to use. This is the way I study form for jumps racing and for 4yo+ handicaps on the flat. I suppose you could say this is the “scientific” method.

For the flat, I tend to follow trainer intuition. I highlight first the trainers in form for the previous 14-days. Trainers have to have had at least 2 winners from a minimum of 10 runners (unless they have a small stable). I combine that stat with having at least 40% of all runners placed (at least). So a trainer with, for example, 3 wins and 7 placed from 18 runners over the past 14-days would strike me as a trainer in form. Then I look at where his horses are running today. If he just has a solitary runner out, then that is another big plus. If that horse is sent to a track where he (or she) has a good strike-rate, and by that I mean better than 20% wins-to-runs, and the trainer must have had at least 2 winners at the track; then that is another big plus. Finally, if the trainer has travelled more than 150 miles to get to the track, then that is another tick in the box. This is my “artistic” method; it requires no form study at all.

1 comment:

  1. This is a very interesting post.

    I think you seriously have to be a mix of both to make the game pay.

    Scientific to actually be able to pinpoint a selection, and consider the factors that should enable a good run. Intuition is being able to read a race, is it solid form, where was the pace coming from, did the horse move well through the race and where can it go next.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.