Basic Horse Race Handicapping

Throughout horse race history all sports bet fans have been doing their best to perfect the art of studying and analyzing all the factors that are likely to influence the results of horse races. We all simply cannot resist the lure of researching the breeding of the horses, their past performances, the race track they’ll be running on, who their jockey will be, what the weather will be like etc, probably all the way down to what they ate for breakfast.

Instinct or experience?

Probably the craziest part of horse race handicapping is that, in the end, if we’ve backed a winner in all likelihood we’ll proudly announce that we used our instinct to make the winning bet. The reality of course is that we might well have used some sense of instinct - but it will have been an informed instinct based on experience from all that detailed research. So, in order to get to the point of knowing by instinct that a horse is worth placing your hard earned dollars on - what experience do you need to pick up in basic horse race handicapping?

Daily Racing Form

In use as a handicapping tool since the 1800s is the idea of the daily racing form. It’s a ridiculously simple concept really in that you can make a judgement about a horse’s performance in a future race based on its previous performance. You can buy daily racing form information through horse racing publications or papers; but the truly dedicated horse race handicapper will build his or her own Daily Racing Form. These days collecting the relevant information from newspapers, TV and the internet and then using a spreadsheet or database lets you store, order and retrieve inordinate amounts of data on horses and their daily form. If you do want to create your own daily racing form there are four components it must have in it: speed, pace, class and form. Other factors to include are the track and weather conditions and a measure of the quality of the jockey riding the horse in the race you’re recording. Now let’s look at those four main factors in a little more detail.

Speed

You want to bet on a horse race, so like any race - speed is king, unless your horse is only racing to the glue factory? Due to all manner of factors on any one day’s racing the speed a horse moves at will vary and thoroughbreds can be very particular about what conditions they run in. So, when setting up the speed factor in your handicapping system you need to take into account the racing conditions, how far away from home the track was etc and then over a series of races determine a speed figure or rating for the horse(s). For more information on speed and horse race handicapping read up about the Beyer Speed Figure.

Pace

OK, before you say what’s pace if not speed - here we’re looking at how the horse moves throughout the race. For handicapping purposes this means - does the horse start fast and slow down as the race progresses, or does it like to just run from the front or, as for most thoroughbreds, does it prefer stalking the other racers. A stalker is the classic horse racer staying close to the leaders and then stepping on the gas to pass them as the finish line approaches. Whatever the pace that a horse likes to run at there will be some race tracks and even racing conditions that could favour or work against them, so you need to be able to use handicapping skills to match a horses pace to particular races.

Class

This isn’t about a horses breeding - but the standard or class of race(s) that a horse has been competing in recently. If the last three races for a horse were all stakes races then it’ll have been up against tougher competition than at an allowances or a claiming race. It could even be finishing low down the order in a stakes race is worth being placed in a claiming race!

Form

There’s no where for a horse to hide in handicapping terms when it comes to their form. Remember form isn’t just about their performance in previous races but also how well they’re doing in training and how well they are being prepared for a race. So you need to build up some knowledge of the trainers and their stables - which can be relied on to produce winners, which can produce winners for a certain track or conditions etc. As a guide here - which trainer/stables can produce a 10+ percentage of winners?