Points System Horse Racing An Opinion And Approach

Do you remember the TV show and the saying “What do points mean prizes!”. 
Most of the readers with all due respect will be too young to this TV show. The equivalent is “What do looks mean, relationships”. I think the younger adults out there will know these types of shows!
Now this is only a joke so just ignore the previous couple of statements it’s relatively early in the day when writing this article.
Now on to business, basically I am not a keen fan of points horse racing systems I have modelled many of these and in my opinion, they represent a high level view of race. 
I have seen horses in a race clear by 5 points clear of the other horses using my own bespoke software and my points system using specific horse form variables. This means the horse has better form than the other horses in the race, but you need to look at the gaps in the form as they can be deceiving. If a horse has 1 point clear it may be unexposed as compared to the horse with 5 points. The points system will not show horses finishing in better penalty value races out of the top 3 but will if you allocate a high points value to this penalty value. So, you can see we can get skew and that is in my opinion the downfall of these points horse racing systems. I think a better approach is to you use points system for the different types of races. It is impossible for one points system to cover all bases.

In fact the more I modelled these systems the more frustrated I became and just kept on tunneling myself down a rabbit hole like a Jack Russell smelling its prey. So why am I writing this article? 
Well, I will show you a points system combined with a manual  approach to horse form for UK handicap horse races that will help you. 

Points To Allocate To Horse Form Variables

We will now use a 10 points system and I will allocate these points in a priority order not just as a total sum of all the points and the biggest total wins the day. These points are priority horse form points and if you put these in a spreadsheet against each horse you can quickly build up a picture of a race. I personally scan the race card taking no notes but that is just the way I do it. I keep all the salient points in my brain and that I believe in my opinion works for me.
Remember I still hand crank the form at the end!

How to use the points horse racing system

10 points being maximum impact of horse form.
1point minimum impact of horse form.

Important Note!

You need to establish race credentials that suits you i.e. Racing code, class and distance and I also add in going and gradient (undulating etc) of the course and placing a great deal of emphasis on the gradient (is it up hill or a long run in etc) to the winning line.

Points            Key Horse Form Metric

10             The last key race that relates to the race identified by the race credentials highlighted in green noted above.
 If you do not have a last key race (form pointer) in the horse’s last 5 to 6 races (previous races) in the racing post race card for a horse then ignore that horse. There must be a definite connection between today’s race and that key race. That is the key building block and then we allocate points backwards. If you can identify more than one key race from the 5 or 6 then the form starts to look more solid. But do not get carried away as another horse might have a key race(s) that has better credential where it finished nowhere i.e. not in the top 3 finishing positions and that is why most punters become unstuck.  Sometimes you will see a curve ball last race in terms of a horse has run in a lower class than today’s race and punters tend to swerve the horse, I have done it! This requires a lot of horse form juggling in flight using your brain no physical notes. But reading horse form is hard and that is why not many people make a profit.

9    Now on to a jockey’s weight in these key races identified in Points 10 allocation above. Now pay attention to this as this were the Jason and the Argonauts  golden fleece is found and it is. This is the tricky part take your key race or races look at todays weight and look at the weight in the key races. What’s the difference and then hold that picture in your brain, but in parallel scan all 5 or 6 previous races and add in a bit of seasoning and then cross reference class and distance plus going. In parallel also check OR and see how the horse finished its key races. Then look at the key races  and look at comments in running and paying note of what finished behind it. This is very tricky to explain as you are scanning so fast the key races and today’s race, looking for gaps in form and forming positives and negatives pointers. The horses I do not like are were you have a horse that is a choice or not a choice as a potential selection. A demonstration on a zoom call real time studying a race card is probably the best approach and you would just follow the mouse on the computer screen. I probably did not explain this well. Golden rule: Check for claimers i.e. jockeys claiming weight in today’s race and last key races.
8 The next one is the BHB – Official Rating OR now there are a number of ways to approach this 1. A horse improving. 2. A horse deteriorating.  3. A horse hovering around a handicap mark with a +/- factor over a period of time 1 year maximum. But I also cross reference with points 9. Above. You have to ask your self constant question at that distance at that class at that weight at that OR at that going and finally against N-1 other horses in the race and doing this at pace with no notes. In other words, can it beat the other horses under internal external conditions.

7 Number of runs a horse has run in its past career. There are two scenarios here.  1. Unexposed horses <= 5 runs.  2. >= than 20 runs but less than or equal to 30 runs. 3. Gone round the moon > 30 runs (seasoned handicappers). I like seasoned handicappers you get what you see and this make form reading a lot easier.
6 In the last 6 key races a horse has run in look for repeating patterns in terms of race position, ground and class and a non-too fluctuating BHB – Official Rating OR. But there is an exception to the rule here, you must watch for horses that have only had 2 or 3 runs in handicap company because they are the party poopers. There is nothing more annoying than this and trust me I make the mistake occasionally. They suddenly find 5 pounds when winning a race and you say to yourself were did that come from.

5 We are now starting to get a bit thin on the ground with horse form but I am only  fooling you here. The one I like is the ability value and I suggest purchasing my video training course, it is excellent value. 
4 The next one is trainer and jockey strike rate and this is important. Hypothetically if trainer Jack Sparrow has a 0% strike rate in N number of days why are they suddenly going to buck the trend. They probably do not have the ammunition (hosres), i.e. good horses to compete with the big money boys and girls.
3 Now I do look at the dam and sire in terms of distance and owners and especially if a horse is switching owner. It can mean a couple of things, they are trying to sell their boat, have a think about that one. The horse just does not have the right fit! In other words, you could run it in a class 9 race and it still would not win. Now we all know there is class 6 as the worse type of race, but we did have class 7 a long time ago.
2 The next one is important to me and that is the soft spot in the Betfair betting market. I like horses that sit under the mug punters selections, and I will not give too much away here. As a punter you should understand your betting market, how can you profit from races if you do not understand decimal odds.

Finally ‘GUT FEELING’ rely on this, your gut will tell you first and your brain will qualify it. 

Thanks