Horse Racing Form Explained

UK Horse Racing Form Explained 

Crunching UK horse racing form data every day can be difficult and demoralising especially when you are not picking winners and losing money on a daily basis.

I have been there in your shoes and walked every mile you have trying to make some extra money to make ends meet. Ok I was working full time and making a good salary as a freelance computer consultant but I wanted more I loved UK horse racing and thought this would give me a way of bolstering my bank account for better holidays and the finer things in life and more importantly escaping the rat race.

 

Why People Struggle To Understand UK Horse Racing Form

In my earlier years of reading horse form in UK handicap horse races I struggled, I could not link the key horse form variables like weight, the official rating of the horse and race distance and many more. If you have a 12 runner horse race by the time I had analysed the form for the 6th horse in the race I had forgotten the other horses I had just analysed. When you add emotion into this such as focusing on a horse you are fond of regardless of its form you are distracted. Another common problem I had when reading horse form was everyday distractions such as the dog barking or somebody at the door. In the early days I used a manual process noting down horse form variables and constant back checking, it was a labour intensive process each horse race taking 20 to 30 minutes to analyse the horse form. Now there are on average four UK horse race meeting per day so there was a great deal of work to be done. Two of the major factors people struggle when reading horse form is concentration and fatigue. We now have computer software to crunch data more effectively and quickly and more importantly it is less prone to human error.

We should not be fooled and think that advancements in technology is our success route to reading horse form data it just allows us to do it more efficiently, remember the phrase ‘GIGO’ garbage in garbage out. So what do I mean by this? Well, even with a computer processing the data you need to know what horse form variables to look for when analysing a horse race effectively.

There are a number of excellent horse form guide computer applications out there but these applications tend to work using horse form filters like did the horse finish 2nd and has the horse won on the course and distance and many more. What you get when you apply these filters are not always the best horses for a particular handicap horse race. These filters do eliminate to some degree horses with bad form or unsuitable courses and distances but deeper horse form analysis is needed to identify the best horses of a race.

 

 

VIDEO COURSE HOW TO STUDY HORSE RACING FORM CORRECTLY IN UK HORSE RACES

HOW TO STUDY HORSE RACING FORM CORRECTLY

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How wrong and stupid and arrogant I was in in my twenties!

I cringe now looking back at my stupidity backing losing horses and now that I am in my 50's we certainly get wiser as we get older. You do learn by your mistake and financial mistakes hurt the most and you learn quicker trust me on this.

So How Much Money Have I lost In My Youth?

Well if I had a figure I would tell you but I never took records of my bets in my twenties which was a big mistake. Always keep a track of bets and horses as you have a audit trail to look back at and a valuable reference point.

What I Did Next To Improve My Horse Racing Betting.

If you have read the 'About Me' page on this website you will know that I wrote computer programs to crunch horse form data in UK horse races. I had built my horse form database and this allowed me to check for UK horse racing form patterns and pick winning horses.

 

horse racing form explained
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Horse Racing Form Guide For Handicap Races In The UK

 

After many years of modelling handicap horse racing form I eventually discovered the key horse form variables that identify the best handicapped horses in a particular UK horse race. I must stress this was not an easy journey as I would model a number of UK handicap horse races noting down key horse form variable patterns that identified the best horses in the race only to be disappointed. I repeated this modelling 1000’s of times over 10 years of horse form data. Eventually my patience and tenacity allowed me to identify the best horse form variables that can be applied to a UK handicap horse race. More importantly I was impressed how consistent these horse variables were over 100’s of horse races in selecting the best horses.

In this horse racing form guide I will outline the most effective way to read horse form for UK handicap horse races effectively and consistently and quickly as we all lead busy lives.