How to Use a Simple Grading System To Dramatically Improve Your Thoroughbred Handicapping

The fact that you're reading these words tells me something about you. It is this: you are a fan of thoroughbred racing. You enjoy the excitement of the race... the nervous roar of the live crowd at the track... the thrill of the finish line. But, if you're anything at all like me, you love the trip to the window when the race is over - so that you can "cash in" on your handicapping skills - collect on your winning bet. The problem is, you probably don't "cash in" enough to be a big winner. Relax...

The Addition of a Simple Grading System Can Improve Your Winning Percentage.

It's true. If you combine your existing horse race handicapping skills with a Grading System that helps you locate "the real live horses" in any race, you're going to win more frequently... and lots more money. You may be saying to yourself, right now, that all of this sounds like "Hogwash"... just a sales pitch to get you to spend money on something you may not want. Guess what... this is not a sale pitch... nothing of the sort. Simply stated, it's an effort - by me - to help you become a better handicapper and a more consistent winner.

Grading Horses Effectively Enables You to Eliminate "Slow Runners."

Think about that. If you can eliminate the horses that will be stopping or slowing down as they reach the stretch, you're going to be ahead of the game... way ahead. In addition, you are likely to cash bets on horses that are overlooked by betters who follow the dreaded "Morning Line." In fact, you will discover that many "slow runners" are Morning Line favorites... horses that will take much more money in "Win Bets" than they deserve.

Effective Grading Leads to Bets on Horses that go off at "Long Odds."

It stands to reason that, if slow horses get bet like favorites, faster horses (the ones you will find through the Grading System) will go off at big odds. And that means you will have opportunities - lots of them - to find and cash in on horses that pay off at 7-1... 10-1... even 15-1 or 20-1... and higher. Sound impossible or at least improbable? It's entirely possible. And, if fact, it is already helping skilled and experienced handicappers - like you - to win big.

The Grading System is Simple to use for Every Race on which you "Watch and Wager."

You'll be able to put this system to work even on days when you're at the track. All that's required is to use the printed program and "past performance" information to create Letter Grades - A, B, C and D - based on speed, track condition, physical fitness and race readiness to find the 3-4 likely winners... and the horses that will be finishing at the back of the pack. It's easy, it's fast... and it works.

Are you a horse handicapping enthusiast or just a lover of the sport? Either way, you should definitely make a visit to HorseHandicappingEnthusiast.com. It is nothing fancy, but is place where all things horse racing related are talked about!

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An Easy Horse Racing System to Evaluate Horses Before You Bet

The process of horse racing handicapping is simply the evaluation of each runner to determine its chances of winning. Once you have an idea, or what we call a "guess-timate" of how likely each runner is to find the winner's circle, then you can start the important part of making money betting on horses. Finding value on the odds board is the goal of serious horse racing handicapping. An easy horse racing system is every horse player's dream.

A simple and easy to use formula will tell you if a runner is a good wager, may be profitable in the long run. Just ask yourself, "If this same race was run ten times or twenty times, how many of those races would each runner win?"

If your answer for horse A is two out of ten times, then he would win about a fifth of the races, so his fair value odds would be 5-1. Once you know that, a look at the odds board will tell you whether he is a good bet at over 5-1 or is overvalued by the crowd and is going off at less than 5-1. I realize that I am simplifying something that is actually very difficult to do, but for the purposes of this short horse racing article, we can't go into depth on the subject of handicapping, an intellectual pursuit that could fill many volumes.

One method that you can use to quickly handicap a race is to break it down to three factors, speed, class, and jockey. Creating a hierarchy, a list of horses starting with the best and going to the worst in each category and then assigning a number for each position is one way to find horses that have an edge. It won't tell you how many times the horse with the best score would win if they raced against each other ten times, but it will tell you which one might win most often.

For instance, taking the two best speed figures in their last three races and adding the figure for those two races together, will give you a number for each horse, assuming that each one has had a race. If you don't play maiden races with first time starters, you won't have the problem of a horse with no past races. Let's say there are five horses in the race and we'll label them from A to E. Their speed figure totals look like this...

A=150, B=145, C=155, D=130, E=148.

Putting them in order from best to worse would give us,

C, A, E, B, D.

Now if we give them a number for their order, it would look like this (since there are five horses, the top number is 5 and the worst of course, is 1).

5 4 3 2 1

C A E B D, so horse C gets 5 points for speed and A gets 4, etc.

To figure class, find the horse who has earned the most money in its last five starts or simply look at the purse in the horse's last race. Any method will work as long as you can identify the horse that raced against the best horses in its last race. In the case of a tie, give each horse the same number in the hierarchy. For instance, if two horses both raced for $50,000 in their last race and that is the top amount, then give each one a 5.

Once again, create a hierarchy with the best receiving a 5 and the worst a 1.

Finally, simply look at the jockey's winning percentage and use that to create a hierarchy.

Your final totals might look something like this...

Speed =

5 4 3 2 1

C A E B D

Class =

5 4 4 2 1

A B E D C

Jockey=

5 4 3 2 1

C D B A E

Now add each horse's total score to find the top horse.

Horse A gets 4 points for speed, 5 points for class, and 2 points for jockey, so it gets a total of 11.

Horse B gets 2 points for speed, 4 points for class, and 3 points for jockey, so it gets a total of 9.

The rest get C=11, D=7, E=8.

Since A and C are tied for 11, they are the top horses. You could bet the one with the best odds, or simply pass the race. This is a very simple system to handicap a horse race and won't make you rich. Wagering on horse races is very risky and this article and system are only meant for entertainment, but it is one easy way to handicap a horse race.

If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://horse-racing-handicapping.co/ and get the truth. Bill Peterson is a former horse race owner and professional handicapper. To see all Bill's horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill's handicapping store.

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Horse Racing Handicapping Class and Speed System

Trying to figure out the class of a horse when handicapping a race isn't always easy. Some providers of horse racing past performances do a pretty good job of rating races and also of determining a horse's quality or class based on who it ran against, the time of the race and the pace, adjusted for variants.

While these figures are very useful, there are some people who prefer to evaluate the runners and come up with their own figures. One way to do this is to take the horses last three races over a fast track and add the speed figures. Then, add the purses in those races.

Finally, to determine the horse's true class based on speed and quality of the competition, divide the speed total into the purse total. Let's look at a hypothetical example.

Speedy, the horse, has posted the following speed figures in his last three races over a fast track...

78

82

80

240

Therefore, Speedy's total speed for three races is 240.

The purse in those races was..

$6,500

$5,800

$6,200

$18,500

So the total purse value of those races was $18,500. Next we divide the $18,500 by 240 and the answer is 65.2.

Treating each of the runners in the race in the same way will give you an idea of class based on ability that is demonstrated at a certain level. However, there are a few caveats that we should think about.

First of all, what was the distance of each race? Secondly, what was the pace scenario and how did it affect the final time, speed figure of the horse in question? Third of course, is in what kind of condition and how far into its running season was the horse? If the horse was returning from a layoff, the first two or three races may have only been for conditioning and may not reflect the true form of the runner.

As you can see, whether you use the commercial figures supplied by the form writers or your own figures, class will always be a bit of an enigma. The fact that it is so difficult may account for that fact that some pundits have argued that there really is no such thing as class in horse racing. That being said, the best way to determine class, whether using speed or some other indicator, is by experience and trial and error. The more races you handicap, the better you will become at determining that illusive quality known as class.

If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://horse-racing-handicapping.co/ and get the truth about betting on horses and winning. Bill Peterson is a former race horse owner and professional handicapper. To see all Bill's horse racing material go to Horse Racing Handicapping, Bill's handicapping store.

View the original article here