Posted on 8/22/2007 6:55:42 PM

Horse Betting – How to Spot Winning Horses

By Brian Mulligan

The first step to making winning horseracing bets at the horse races is attempting to solve the puzzle known as horse handicapping. It starts with the conditions of the race.

In this instant gratification world, the first impulse is just to dive into the past performances but you have to know who is eligible for a particular race to have any sort of clue.

Conditions include the distance, purse, age categories, and weight which qualifies a horse for entry into a particular event.

The purse is relative to the quality of the race. Cheap horses run for less money than the better horses. Distance is important as the measuring stick for getting to the wire first. There are sprinters - who run best at races up to a mile - and routers, who perform best going a mile or more.

Early in their careers, horses are kept to the same age bracket. As they mature, they try older horses. A good barometer of a 3-year-old crop is how they do against older horses late in their sophomore years.

There is a scale of weights in the rules of horseracing. It stipulates the weights that are to be carried. This happens when the weights are not stated in the conditions. For instance, 2-year-olds are to carry 102 pounds going 6 furlongs in August. Three-year-olds are to carry 122 pounds going 1 1/4 miles the last 2 months of their sophomore seasons.

A couple of schools of thought about weight include an old saying, “ weight can stop a train”. It seems to be a red herring. Most of the professional horse handicappers I know pay very little attention to weight on an every day basis.

In stakes, weight can be important, as a topweight may have to concede a rival several pounds. A sharp unaccomplished horse that gets in light could be a major factor against a classy horse that must give him 12 or 15 pounds. It’s tricky, but on a day-to-day basis, try to put more emphasis on other factors.

Once a handicapper understands the conditions, he can attack the past performances. One must try to pinpoint the speed, form, pace style, class and consistency of each entrant.

The age-old adage “pace makes the race” is just as true today as it was at racing’s inception. How the race sets up is of the utmost importance because from there, contenders and pretenders can be separated. By evaluating each entrant’s style and speed, a reasonable concept of how the race will set up starts to crystallize. By comparing early fractions of the races of each horse in the race in question, a visualization or projection of where each horse will be at each juncture of the race can be theorized upon.

If there are 7 horses in the event and one has superior early speed and he’s proven at the distance, he becomes one of the best horse bets in racing. If there are 3 or 4 speed horses in a race that show similar ability to pressure the 1st fraction of a race, a horse that prefers to make one big run from off the pace can sometimes be in the right spot at the right time.

A lone speed trip is a handicapper’s dream, but the key is to discover the lone speed BEFORE the race.

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