The search for winners

After a busy Easter weekend, it’s back to humdrum fare with an ordinary meeting at Yarmouth on the Flat, which I will give a miss. The Jumps meeting at Exeter also is uninspiring, tho’ tonights meeting at Sedgefield looks interesting and I may give this one some thought today, especially the Durham National at 7:15. I’m not a fan of the All-Weather, so the meetings at Lingfield and Wolverhampton are not for me.

One horse that I watched on Saturday was AULD BURNS but, even tho’ he was 3rd in his race, he looked ordinary and will likely struggle back in handicaps as he’s not “Listed” class based on this run. Later that afternoon, another I was hoping to see CLUB OCEANIC, was a non-runner.

With the amount of Flat racing that will take place over the next few months, I’m going to change my approach to winner-finding slightly from that used for the Jumps racing. For the past couple of Flat seasons I’ve used a combination of trainer-form stats and basic form-study to find horses that I consider are “well thought of” by connections. For instance, in May 2009 Richard Hannon sent only 3 horses to the entire Chester “May” meeting, including Cyflymder. Altho’ drawn well for his race, a 6f handicap (4 of 11), he was held-up at the rear before making his effort along the rails. As could be expected, he struggled to get a clear run, but still managed to be a close 4th. Next time out, Cyflymder won at 10/1, and he also won his next 2 races at odds of 11/2 and 5/1 and in all 3 of those races he was either prominently ridden or made all. He was only beaten a neck in his next race when the handicapper finally caught up with him. What made me sit-up and notice him was that from a stable of 200+ horses, Hannon took only 3 to Chester (he had a single runner on each of the 3-days) and he has a fairly good record there too.

So, I am trawling thru’ the racing results published in the Weekender of a Wednesday, putting together a list of horses that I consider are well handicapped.

Thanks for reading this blog to all new visitors.

The blog takes a lot of effort to maintain and I hope that readers of the blog get enjoyment from it too. If you have had a successful wager on the back of what you’ve read here, then please make a contribution as an expression of thanks. Feel free to tell those who you think may find the blog of interest and value and, if you are a regular visitor, please add the blog to your list of favourites.

Betting on horseracing should be a pleasurable experience - never bet more than you can afford to lose.
Thanks from Wayward Lad