Upped In Class Best Horse Racing Tips
The system works with 4 simple rules when analysing horse racing form in UK handicap horse races and it is easy to use. All you need is the excellent free racing post website
The Horse Racing System 4 Simple Rules
Using the racing post website select any UK handicap horse race with a class greater than or equal to 6 in other words ignore class 6 horse races in the UK.
We will use the screenshot below from the racing post to look at one horse and apply the 4 rules to it.
We know from the above screenshot that this is a handicap race and a class 4 horse race has underlined in blue. If we look at horse ‘Alpine Sierra’ it’s last race was on the 26th March 2022 in a class 5 race as underlined in red. It was carrying a weight of 9-9 as pointed to by the turquoise line. The weight 9-9 is 9 stone and 9 pounds and there are 14 pounds in stone. The horse finished 5th 8th and 11th in its last three races as indicated by the vertical green line. The horse is carrying a weight of 8-12 which is 8 stone and 12 pounds in today’s race underlined by purple. We are also interested in the total races in any code ( Flat, Jumps and AWF – All Weather ) in its career and I will show you how to get this later on in the book as this is important.
So we will have a look at our 4 horse system rules below, a horse has to pass all 4 rules for it to be considered as a bet.
Rule 1. Upped in class today’s race class – last race class must be less than 0.
Using the screenshot above today’s race is a class 4 as underlined in blue and ‘Alpine Sierra’ last race was in a class 5 underlined in red.
Class 4 – Class 5 = -1 so the horse is upped in class as class 4 is better than class 5. So the horse passes rule 1.
In UK horse racing there is 6 horse racing classes, which are 1 to 6 with class 1 being the highest and class 6 the lowest class.
Note: Ignore any race where there are more than 3 horses in the race stepping up in class.
Rule 2. Weight drop is today’s race weight minus last race weight must be less than 0.
The horse is racing of a weight of 8-12 which is 8 stone and 12 pounds. We convert to total weight in pounds as follows,
8X14+12=124 Pounds Note: There are 14 pounds in stone.
The horse’s last racing weight for the race on the 26th March 2022 was 9-9 which converted to total pounds is,
9x14+9=135 Pounds
So the horse has dropped in weight 124-135=-11 by 11 pounds so passes rule 2.
Rule 3. Last Race position is 1st or 2nd or 3rd or 4th.
The horse finished 5th on its last race on the 26th March 2022 so does not pass this step.
Now at this point we would not do rule 4 below as the horse did not pass rule 3 and a horse has to pass all 4 rules for it to be a bet. We will look at the rule 4 for completeness.
Rule 4. Total Runs Less than 13 in the horse’s career.
We simple click on the horse see screenshot below,
You can see underlined in blue the horse has run in total of 7 races but in fact it is 6 races as I have included today’s race 25th April 2022 pointed to by the red line so I subtracted that race. Now this horse would have passed rule 4 but it is irrelevant has it did not pass rule 3.
We have discussed each rule a horse has to pass before we move on to the next rule and horse must pass all 4 rules for the horse to be a bet.
Our horse ‘Alpine Sierra’ finished 4th for our race on the 25th April 2022.
Now we will look at another race in more detail.
26th April 2022 Brighton 3:58 Winner Mystic Wells 3/1 1st
This is a great example of this 4 rule system there were 6 runners in this class 3 race.
There were only 3 runners stepping up in class and thus passing rule 1 of our horse racing system and these horses were,
Thunder Queen Class 5 on the 4th April 2022 to Class 3.
Mystic Wells Class 4 on the 11th April 2022 to Class 3.
Undertheboardwalk Class 4 on the 20th November 2021 to Class 3.
The remaining runners in the race were running in the same class or dropping in class so we ignore these horses as we are only interested in horses that are stepping up in class.
So concentrating on our 3 horses mentioned above Thunder Queen, Mystic Wells and Undertheboardwalk lets apply our 3 remaining rules looking for potential bets.
Thunder Queen
Rule 2. Weight drop is today’s race weight minus last race weight must be less than 0.
The horse is racing of a weight of 8-00 which is 8 stone. We convert to total weight in pounds as follows,
8X14=112Pounds Note: There are 14 pounds in stone.
The horse’s last racing weight for the race on the 4th April 2022 was 9-4 which converted to total pounds is,
9x14+4=130 Pounds
So the horse has dropped in weight 112-130=-18 by 18 pounds so passes rule 2.
We now move onto rule 3.
Rule 3. Last Race position is 1st or 2nd or 3rd or 4th.
The horse finished 1st in its last race on the 4th April 2022 so it passes rule 3.
We now move onto our last rule 4.
Rule 4. Total Runs Less than 13 in the horse’s career.
We simple click on the horse see screenshot below,
The horse has run in a total of 4 races in its career underlines in blue in the screenshot above and thus passes rule 4.
Our horse Thunder Queen has passed all four rules and is a potential bet but we need to look at the other two runners as well.
Now on to our next horse,
Mystic Wells
Rule 2. Weight drop is today’s race weight minus last race weight must be less than 0.
The horse is racing of a weight of 8-8 which is 8 stone and 8 pounds. We convert to total weight in pounds as follows,
8X14=120Pounds Note: There are 14 pounds in stone.
The horse’s last racing weight for the race on the 11th April 2022 was 9-7 which converted to total pounds is,
9x14+7=133 Pounds
So the horse has dropped in weight 120-133=-13 by 13 pounds so passes rule 2.
We now move onto rule 3.
Rule 3. Last Race position is 1st or 2nd or 3rd or 4th.
The horse finished 2nd in its last race on the 11th April 2022 so it passes rule 3.
We now move onto our last rule 4.
Rule 4. Total Runs Less than 13 in the horse’s career.
We simple click on the horse see screenshot below,
The horse has run in a total of 5 races in its career underlines in blue in the screenshot above and thus passes rule 4.
Now on to our last horse,
Undertheboardwalk
To save repetition the last race for our horse is pointed to by the blue line on the screenshot below was on the 20th November 2021 carrying a weight of 9-3 and finished 10th. In today’s race pointed to by the red line the horse was carrying a weight of 9-4. So our horse fails rules 2 and 3 and is not a bet. The horse did pass rule 4 though but a horse has to pass all 4 rules to be considered a bet.
So our horse racing system has highlighted two potential horses for a bet Thunder Queen and Mystic Wells. So which horse do we bet on that is the question we ask ourselves, we have a number of options here outlined below.
- We could back both horses.
- We could Dutch these two horses.
- We could pick one horse but this is a tricky one as how do we know which one to pick.
- We could leave the race alone.
For this race my approach was to pick one horse and that was Mystic Wells and I will explain why I picked this horse.
When I looked at both horses Thunder Queen and Mystic Wells I noticed the horse Thunder Queen was stepping up in class from a class 5 to a class 3 and the horse Mystic Wells was stepping up in class from class 4 to class 3. In other words Thunder Queen had to step up two class levels rather one class level for my horse Mystic Wells. One other reason I picked Mystic Wells is that it had better form figures in that its last 3 race positions were 2nd 6th and 3rd. The horse Thunder Queen last 3 race positions were 1st 13th and 1st. In other words by adding up the last 3 race positions for each horse Mystic Wells had the lower figure of 11 compared to 15 for Thunder Queen.
But the main driver for my choice was the class levels the horse had to step up.
The horse Mystic Wells did win the race and Thunder Queen finished 3rd. The horse Thunder Queen was actually the favourite for the race.
Below is the official results screenshot,
The horse Thunder Queen finished 3rd by 7l so it was well beaten and may be the class step up was too much of a hike for the horse. This was quite a competitive race as you can see by SP – starting prices of the horses at the top of the betting.
Sometimes if I have two potential bets I will also favour the horse that is nearer to the top of the betting.
Note: Ignore any race when the potential number of bets after applying the system to race is greater than 2!
Summary
This system is quite easy to use and you may be wondering what about horses dropping in class why have you not considered these. Yes horses dropping in class do win races and their weights are increased accordingly but after modelling UK horse races I wanted to concentrate on horses stepping up in class that are improving and are unexposed. The Rule 4 Total Runs Less than 13 in the horse’s career highlights unexposed horses. Remember I only apply this system to UK handicap
horse races. Also remember to ignore races were there are more than two potential bets in race and more than 3 horses stepping up in class.
One other point I should make is that when you are studying a race for a potential bet you should ignore the lowest class race which is a class 6 as no horses will be stepping up in class! In other words ignore class 6 races on the racing post race card.