Scanning A Race Card To Analyze Horse Form

I use the excellent racing post on the internet as it a great tool for analysing horse racing form. I do this by scanning the race card in numerous ways that I will explain later.
With this approach the punter will then be able to eliminate quickly a number of horses from the race card in this first sequential pass starting at the top of the racing post race card. I do maximize the advantages and benefits of reverse scans of the race card when I get to the bottom of it but this is entirely up to you. You do not have to action full sweeps of the race card in either direction you can stagger it flicking between different horses vertically and horizontally and vice versa.

If you also apply horizontal scans left to right and right to left in unison with the above, then you can absorb the horse form quicker. But the hard bit is yet to come and that is cross matching and identifying the links across form for all the horses in the race and we will call this a parallel scan. In other words, how one horse compares with another at various horse form levels and more importantly as a whole picture of the race.
Vertical and horizontal scanning with parallel scanning thrown in when reading a horse race card takes some practice but master that and you can process a race faster. I have mentioned this process in one of my other books a visualisation technique and I thoroughly recommend this not just as I want to sell the book, but it’s probably the best book I have written. You should really take no notes when doing this scanning as stalling the scan process increases error, due to brain fatigue and mental block.

Parallel scanning is the process of reading horse form for N number of horses in a race card at one time scanning in multiple directions and retaining key pointers along the way for horses. The key here is to memory map the horse form in the race and the links and associations between these horses that are attained from this.
In a nutshell simple judge each horse against the field and then eliminate where possible.

Is this hard, yes, it is but possible with practice, start with a 5 runner race first and build on this and you will get better. But start with a race with mature horses in other words the horses have past form. I suggest only looking at UK handicap races and I will give you a clue where to look below.

1.    BHB Official OR - Official rating of the horse.
2.    The weight the horse is carrying in today’s race and only assess its last 6 races starting with the most current races.
3.    Look at the trainer’s strike rate must be over 10% in the last number of days. 
4.    The class of race is important the links between weigh and class and OR. This is the biggest clue I am giving you. Do not get tied up on finishing positions in the last 6 races of horses as it is a red herring. However, it does show if a horse is in form but form is nothing if not measured in what class it has achieved it.
5.    Finally, once you have addressed the above 4 points above for each horse and identified links between the horses. Then finally add the icing sugar and this is look at the penalty value (Prize money for the race) for the last 6 races for a horse.
There are many more but those 5 above will stand you in good stead.

We can identify 4 elements to the scanning process of a horse race card,
1.    Sequential scan (First pass to eliminate horses that do not meet horse form requirements the simplest approach first). This means reading each horse in turn sequentially.
2.    Vertical scan (default bidirectional). Means reading all form on the race card from top to bottom and in reverse.
3.    Horizontal scan (bidirectional) minimum requirement left to right scan of the race card like reading a book in the UK but can be different in other countries.
4.    Parallel scan (Incorporating scans in 1,2,3 above).
Now some punters will find the above race card scanning techniques easily.