When betting on a horse, some people simple choose a lucky sounding name and place a bet. But the smart money is on studying form and making sure you find the most likely winner of that race. The art of studying form is a great way for beginner betters to make a start without losing their shirts.
So if you enjoy placing a bet or two and like looking at stats, studying form is a great way to make smart bets at the horses.
Let’s start with some basics:
Results
Before even looking at the horse and jockeys, start with the minimum of understanding the race card and its key table. The race cards, whether online or with newspapers, will have the recent performances of the horses displayed.
So trying to understanding the race card is vital, and being able to read the recent results of the horses is key:
On the card:
- 1 – Means first
- 0 – outside places (top three/four)
- Hyphens – separate seasons
- P – Pulled up
- R – Refused to race
- U – Unseated rider
- F – Fell
So once you get the basics of race cards, you need to gather information from prior races to place your future bets.
Just as you’d know more abut the game and players when you place soccer bets, studying horse form is essential and the wins could be well worth the time.
Here a few of the highlights of what to look for when deciding as a beginner to study race form in order to begin betting:
Horses
Focus your attention on older horses, as the horses two years and younger or any three-year-olds with no are inexperience can be hard to predict.
Just like the inexperienced three year olds, the two year olds have no form history to study, so avoid betting on these horses could be unwise.
Jockeys
A jockey and his past performance is very important form to study, as his history most likely predicts his future wins or losses.
The unknown jockey provides unknown risks, so them having some prior history with the horse or jockey to work with will assist in betting.
Tracks
A bit of research on the track the event is to be raced on can go a long way, as each horse has their favourite surface to run on. By checking the performance of all the horses on various surfaces, one can check which horse might be more favourable to win.
Horses can perform verify differently when running on an alternative surfaces, so checking something as small as track performance greatly affect betting.
Compare class from the prior races of the horse. If the horse is dropping in class, they are more likely to perform better, moving up implies the class could that performance will be worse.
Trainers
Trainer’s previous results can also really assist with researching betting form.
Pay attention on the trainers other horses results and form, his previous entries into this event, and if any of those entries favourites.
Researching the past performance of trainers and their current stable is very important to helping with overall betting forms.