The way to progress as a horse racing tipster is to keep good accurate notes that you can refer to when you want to check your progress and avoid making the same mistakes. But taking notes is not that simple for some people and being organized in your thinking is an absolute must when picking winners.
You must first identify the key downside factors that you want to track. If you want to become a master at using speed numbers to pick winners, you need to keep track of the speed numbers you used to make betting decisions. If you want to use pace as a handicap figure you use to rate competitors, you should write down how you thought a race would go and then you should watch the race and see how close you were able to call each other’s position. horse during the race.
This is what you are really trying to achieve when you use your own notes to become a better forecaster.
1. Learn how each horse’s projected figure, whether it be pace, speed, class, will affect your ability to compete.
2. Learn how important the spread is by comparing those numbers in each race class.
3. Learn to exploit the differences and crowd opinion on those factors to find good value bets.
Here’s what each of those points really means.
1. Once you decide which factor(s) you want to score, your next job is to write them down for each race you have a handicap on. Then watch the race and see how each horse performed. After a while, you may start to notice a pattern. You will also begin to have a valid opinion based on seeing numerous races with horses that showed that figure. For example, let’s say you’re looking at claimed races for senior horses over 6 furlongs at your favorite track. You start to notice that a horse with a higher starting pace figure is usually within a few lengths of the lead or wins the race. Now, whenever you see a horse like that, you know that he must be considered a contender or an exotic piece of work.
2. If you’re tracking the three main factors, speed, class, pace, and notice that one isn’t really a determining factor, that’s important, especially when we get to part three. During the second phase, you are trying to determine how important a 3-tick advantage in initial speed is or if the horse drop from 15k claimers to 10k claimers has a big advantage. In other words, you are looking at how much weight the spreads carry, and therefore how much each should be used in your calculations.
3. This is where your note keeping should pay off. You have looked at the factors you wanted to become an expert on and have a good collection of notes. He has determined, for example, that speed is only a good determining factor if a horse has a lead of at least 5 points in speed figures in his last three races. However, he realizes that the crowd is betting a horse with only a 2-point lead to even the money. You look at the other contenders and you find a horse with good early speed and you know that the advantage he has in early speed will make him competitive in the end and he has a 5-1 odds. You know from past experience that it’s a good bet, so you play.
The reason the crowd didn’t know this is because most don’t take notes and don’t understand how important the spread is in important handicap figures. If you were to poll the crowd, they would tell you that the horse was the favorite because he had the best speed figure and that’s important. But he knows from his notes that while speed is important, it doesn’t matter much unless there’s at least a 5-point difference. The crowd overestimates the advantage of the horses. This is how you find good value bets amongst the other contenders.
You won’t find a bet on every race this way and it will take some work to do. You have to keep well written notes and say why you liked a horse in a race and then see what happens and write it down. Then watch the race and look at their opinions at the end of the race to see how well they held up. This is how you will learn and this is how you will have an advantage over the crowd. Grades are feedback and without feedback you will not improve.
You’ll find that most people learn almost everything they know about disability in their first 10 trips to the racetrack. After that, they go over and over and make the same mistakes over and over and never get past that point because they didn’t take notes and have a fuzzy recollection of what works and why. Most people, truth be told, are just trying to get lucky at horse racing and not everyone can get lucky. For the 9 out of 10 days you’re unlucky, you better be good. Picking winners to make a profit requires skill and a good horse racing handicap.
