A rough guide to my ratings system..

For me personally when it comes to betting I like to base my opinions on some solid facts on paper rather than here say or my own gut feeling – which sometimes works a treat but largely let’s me down... This is why I decided about a year ago that I wanted to have solid facts and figures to back up supporting or indeed laying a horse this is when I decided I wanted to compile my own ratings system.

Various people I know like to do their own ratings for the racing and each does it their own unique way. I recently had a few people ask me how I come up with my ratings so I would like to tell you how I carry out my evaluations and how I get that Ratings score.

It took me about six months of tweaking and changing small aspects of my system to get to the point I’m at today where I have had consistant results. Now nobody’s system is full proof we are dealing with animals and as you all know results can sometimes come out of the blue and you can have good days as well as bad. But I feel my ratings system works well enough and importantly works consistantly enough for myself.


Churning through the stats....
So how do I mark up horses for various races? Well to be honest there are the three S’s as I like to say they are Stats, Stats and yep you guessed it more stats!. My ratings are carried out pretty much 99% through stat based analysis. For the purposes of my blog I post up six races per day that I focus on but on a normal race day I will do a lot more for my own purposes.

Different races however will be rated differently. For example two year old newcomer races I have no form to base my analysis on so for this I change tact and go largely on the Stable’s form with two year olds back to the last two seasons and how the Jockey’s have got on with two year olds. I also have points for breeding and what the family may have done on optimum distance, conditions etc. I used to shy away from two year old races but found it really interesting now looking into family history etc and have found you can gain a lot by this and the stables records with these newcomers.

Jumps races are also rated differently. The jumps horses on paper will have a higher points rating simply because my parameters are different. For the jumps I look back over the last six runs. I’m also more inclined to put more emphasis on race conditions in jumps races such as going and ground simply because these races are of course more stamina based.

So come race day here is what I take into account. The horses form going back to the last 10 runs. I think some people dismiss horses too soon after say one or two poor runs for me I’m willing to look back a bit further and give some the benefit of doubt. I then have a point’s parameter and the more consistant the horse the higher number of points I will give them. I also look to see what kind of races they have run in and how the form of that race has worked out with next time runners etc. I am inclined to mark up horses dropping in grade or class for example. The Official rating is also looked at to see any rise or drop in weights and how this could affect their chances. So that’s stage one of my points system.

Next I take into account the Jockey and Trainer form over the previous two week period. Because as we all know a stable who finds form can suddenly get horses that had shown little previously to put in good performances and likewise when jockeys go through a purple patch. I also take into account jockeys stats at the track. For this again I award points based on these stats.

Then I look at the race conditions. This includes the track, ground, distance & draw bias (if there is one). Horses who have won at a track will be marked up more and also if a horse has won at the trip or on the ground would boost their ratings score.

I will also look at the makeup of the race and this is the only real part of my ratings system where I don’t use stats I read through the horses in the race and see how they are expected to run. So I look at where the pace might come from if there are a lot of front runners Id be inclined to mark up a hold up performer more, or if I can only see one pace angle I would make a call as to whether I think their pace will see them get out and not come back to them. This is the smallest score on my ratings but as I said the only one where I don’t use stats and my own intuition if you like. After all these aspects are taken into account I then have my overall ratings score which is calculated the same way for that sphere of racing every race.

It took me a long while to tweak my points parameters to get to a point where I was happy so this included months of ‘’paper trading’’ if you like. So not actually betting just rating the horses and then evaluating the outcome and seeing where I needed to make adjustments to my ratings etc. I also don’t always just back the Top Rated horse because if I have a race where the top rated is fav and say the second rated is only rated a few points lower and much better value I’d back the second if I feel it has a decent chance so sometimes the ratings can be used as a rough guide.

For anyone wanting to do their own stats it’s really up to you as to what you want to take into account. I like to cover as many bases as I can but this does take time and wouldn’t be for everyone. But I do feel having your own ratings system can help you evaluate racing more and then you become more comfortable in certain types of races etc.

Some people don’t like to base their evaluations on stats but for me I like to have these solid evaluations down on paper. I liken it to being back at school as a sort of homework if you like and if you put the effort in you should get the results.
Anyway I shall stop here hope you found it interesting and thanks for reading and as always Good Luck Punting!!

You can follow my ratings daily by going to holdyahorses.blogspot.com