Last week I spoke about getting the right odds about the bets we place and how this can improve our overall profit. That being understood what about actually finding the right horses to bet on?
There are many ways that people choose their selections but the main methods are either to read the form or to follow a system. I’m going to talk mainly about systems today and how we need to view them and also how we can improve them by reading the form!
One of the most fundamentally important thing a system needs to be based on is logic. When creating a system we need to make sure that the rules that the system is based on make sense. We need to think about how the rules apply to the race we are looking at. There are plenty of resources out there that help us come up with stats and figures. For example when looking at trainer strike rates in the Racing Post it wouldn’t be logical if we picked a trainer with say a 50% strike rate but they’ve only had 6 runners. That sample size isn’t big enough. We would look at a trainer that had a 25% strike rate from a hundred runners as this would prove consistency.
The idea of using a system is that we are looking for a quick way of finding qualifiers without having to go through the form of every runner. There are many ways of finding short cuts to what may warrant a bet. Have a look at the list below:
1. Trainer strike rates at a course.
2. Jockey strike rates at a course.
3. Strike rate of jockey and trainer combined when riding together.
4. Strike rate of winning favourites at the course.
They are to name but a few. They are logical ways of finding quickly any horses that maybe worth a bet. Once we have a list of qualifiers we can then go onto the second part of the selection process and that is reading the form. It’s all very well finding a trainer that fares well at a given course but to the blindly back their horse at odds of 66/1 might not get you very far!
Have a look to see if the horse has a chance, read the form and then check the market. If it’s at the top of the market then you’ll know that it has a shot at returning you some money. Like I said last week have a look around all the different betting sites and take an average of the forecast prices and if you can shop around and get on at a bigger price then you’ve struck yourself a value bet. Have a play around with some systems, back these systems selections up with a bit of form reading and then check the markets for your best price and you’ll be on the road to start making profits from your betting.
Of course if you haven’t the time then Value At The Races does all the hard work for you and we are the all time leader on WINS Leader Board and have been for a long time.
Catch you next week,
Ed
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