Horse Racing Winners

Archive for January, 2012

Have you ever thought of what it means when a trainer scratches a horse from a race? What does it mean when a veterinarian scratches a horse from a race? Do you even know if the horse you are betting on today was recently scratched from a race, and if it was scratched, why?

That may be some of the most important handicapping information that you will find and yet, many people totally disregard it and don’t check the scratch list. Fortunately, many past performances now provide a list of recently scratched horses. It tells you which of the horses on today’s program were scratched from their last race(s).

A veterinarian scratch is serious because it means a physical problem such as sickness or lameness. Both problems are bad news and may signal that there is a problem that may or may not have been resolved. If the horse you’re considering for a bet was too lame or sick to run in its last race, how do you know it is completely recovered and fit today? Even if the vet okays it, does it mean that it is now 100% ready to race?

The vet may give the horse a clean bill of health but that doesn’t mean the sickness or physical problem didn’t take its toll and leave the runner weakened or sour on racing. Therefore, I always caution handicappers to make sure they look a horse over thoroughly before betting on it if it was scratched in the last 30 days. Make sure you are getting a good price, too.

A trainer scratch may also signal a physical problem, but that’s just one of several considerations. Sometimes trainer will enter a horse in multiple races and then wait to see what the field looks like for each race. There may be a few horses that are just too tough in that class so he or she will look over the other entries and scratch out of the race if the tough competitors are also entered in the same event.

On the other hand, a trainer may also take a runner out of a race because the owner has several other horses running on another day and he wants that owner to be able to see all his horses run on the same day. I know that sounds a bit slim, but that really does sometimes happen and is just one of many reasons that conditioners will drop their horse out of a race. If you don’t know why a horse was scratched, be very careful when wagering on or against it.

Many people are aware of the factors used to handicap a horse race, but how many know just how important each factor may be? Do you know if class or speed is more important in that turf race you are now handicapping? Is early speed the most important consideration in that dirt sprint? Knowing how the factors relate to each other will help you to pick more winners.

Some people call it weighing the factors. The most important aspect of the race gets the most weight. If may be expressed as a percentage or as a simple number such as Speed +1.43. Obviously, even though class, speed, or other considerations may seem to matter more, we can’t disregard the other things that make handicapping the challenge that it is.

A lot of times, the way to determine which one of the many statistics and bits of data you are analyzing is the strongest is to look for the differences between the runners. For instance, if you have a maiden claiming race where the top three contenders have the following average speed figures, A=78, B=77, and C=75, you have three horses who are closely matched for speed.

If your research has shown that speed is usually the most important factor in handicapping maidens, then you might assume that A has a slight advantage over B who has a bigger advantage over C. But there is more to it than that, because B is dropping out of the Maiden Special Weight ranks into a mid-class maiden claimer. That gives B a big class advantage. In this case, though speed is usually the first consideration, the class drop is now determines who your top pick will be.

Comparing one number to another and looking at it as a fraction or ratio is one way to see just how big the difference, or advantage may be. For speed we have 78/77 but for class, using the purse, we have $45,000/28,000. Now the difference becomes quite clear. While we still have to consider other handicapping tools, ratios will help you to make the many comparisons that make horse racing handicapping so challenging and potentially profitable.

There are several ways to use this information. First of all, you can determine what the most important factor is in any class of race just by looking at the winners of past races and comparing their speed, class, pace, and connections to the other horses who ran against them. Secondly, you can create a fraction or ratio for comparing the attributes of the horses in a given race.

Since the favorite is the horse with the most money wagered on it in a horse race, a lot of the focus of the bettors is in either winning with the favorite or betting against it and winning. If you are handicapping horse races and wagering then your focus should be to make a profit. The joy of gambling and watching beautiful runners as well as the drama and spectacle is all part of the game, but when the cheering is over and the moans of despair have faded away, having more jingle in your pocket will enable you to keep playing.

As you evaluate each runner in the race, your goal is probably to estimate each one’s chances of winning and converting it into a number that you can then work with to compare to a payoff. For instance, if Horse A is going to win about 20% of the time, it must be going off at 4-1 in order for a win bet on Horse A to be a break even proposition. If the favorite is at 2-1 and will pay $6 for every two dollar win bet, then it must be able to win at lest a third of the time in your calculations.

Another way to look at it is simple percentages using the totals in the win pool. If the chalk has 40% of the win pool bet on it and in your estimation only has a 30% chance of winning, that means that another horse must be under valued by the crowd. That is a false favorite and creates a nice betting opportunity for you, if you can spot the horse that is better than it appears.

How you arrive at the actual probability of the people’s choice winning the race should be based on multiple handicapping factors such as speed, class, pace, connections, post position, and form. These factors are all part of the mix and many handicappers are good at analyzing them but leave out one important step. They fail to acquaint themselves with the actual statistics for races of the same class, distance, surface, gender. In other words, there is a race model that shows how often favorites win and what running style, post position, etc., wins most often.

If you find a horse that has an edge in several critical categories such as speed and pace, you may rate its chances very high, but what if the race favors closers and this is a front runner who must be out front all the way? Its running style may seriously compromise its chances of winning and yet, the crowd may make it the favorite. Even though your handicapping has shown it to have an edge, using your knowledge of what it takes to win in that particular spot, you should spot this one as a false favorite and look for a horse that may win from off the pace.

It isn’t enough to know who has the edge in certain categories, it is also important to compare that favorite to the race model and statistics for winners under the same conditions. Horses who are running against the grain are often a gold mine for handicappers who will take a chance on another horse better suited to the race and they are one of the best false favorites to bet against.