One Race, Start to Finish

A short routine that ends in bet or pass.

Theory: a routine you can repeat

You have all the pieces now. This chapter puts them in order, as a routine short enough to use on any race.

  1. Read the race line. Distance, surface, going, class and field size.
  2. Level. For each horse, the range of figures in runs that fit today, and how recent the best is.
  3. Conditions. Who has shown their level at this distance, on this surface and going? Where is the question mark?
  4. Readiness. Days since the last run, first-up or not, and any excuse last time.
  5. Your line. A percentage for every horse, totalling 100%, written before you look at the odds.
  6. Prices. Your fair odds are 1 ÷ your chance. Compare them with the offers.
  7. Decide. Bet only where the offer is clearly bigger than your fair odds, with a stake fixed in advance. Otherwise pass. Passing is a decision too.
  8. Record and review. Keep the note. After the race, check what you read well and what you missed, separately from whether a bet won.

With practice, the first four steps take a few minutes.

Handicaps

The race in this chapter is a handicap, the most common kind of race. The official handicapper gives better-rated horses more weight to carry, to narrow the gaps. Here the weights run from 52 kg to 62 kg.

The MWP figures in the form already allow for the weight each horse carried in those races. For today, keep the new weights in mind: on the MWP scale a kilogram is worth a little over one rating point.

Stakes and records

Start without money, or with very small stakes. If you bet, decide before you start what you can afford to lose, and keep every bet in a record: the race, the horse, the odds you took, the stake, your percentage and the result. A spreadsheet works; so does a tracker such as The Long Edge Tracker, which I sell. The record is how you find out, over many races, whether your percentages mean what you think.

One rule above the rest: if losing the money would hurt, or betting stops feeling like a choice, the right stake is zero. Help is free and confidential. In Britain, GamCare's National Gambling Helpline is 0808 8020 133; elsewhere, look up your national helpline.

Good decisions can lose

A 25% chance loses three times in four. If you judged the chance well and took a good price, that loss was part of the plan. And a bet that wins can still have been a poor decision. Judge yourself on the decisions, over many races, rather than on the last result.

Where next

That's the Intro. You can read a card, judge a run, fit it to today and turn your view into a price. The full course takes each step further: how the rating works, trainers and jockeys, pace, data and models, pricing, bet types, staking and the psychology of keeping score. It stands on its own, so start wherever you like.

Practical: one race on your own

Quiz: the routine

Where next: the full course, sixteen chapters on the whole method. Start with chapter 1, or with the subject you most want to sharpen.