The first hurdle (it's a long one) - horse racing website info

Hi All,

Thought I'd post another blog to brighten up these dark nights. I as mentioned on my first post I wanted to take you through my brief journey so far as a punter with all it's trials and tribulations.

I'm going to take you through some of the websites I have found and if anyone wants to suggest any more then feel free to add them in the comments below.

When I first started losing in the 'early days' I had to start to think about another approach to betting on horses otherwise my ISA savings would disappear quickly (GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 1 - ONLY BET WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD). To be honest I was 'blind betting' and looking back was so naive in assuming that all horse races were pretty much the same apart from some races are run without hurdles and some aren't. This was the worse thing I could have done. I didn't have a clue about ground, distances, trainer form, jockey form, weight etc. Now your probably thinking why read on if he has loses at betting on the horses. First of all I'm not an expert but my experiences of losing have made me much better at understanding horse racing (what doesn't kill you makes you stronger). You also have accept that if you bet then you will lose money certain days when your horse falls at the last or a horse wins that wasn't expected because in the past it was always running at the wrong distance by his trainer (this is sometimes where whispers may come true but it's few and far between)

I realised I needed to understand more about horse racing in more detail and the different types of races. The first point of call was good old 'Google' and I started off by typing in 'racing tips' , 'racing statistics', 'types of horse races' and any other racing terminology when I came across it such as 'how many furlongs in a mile?', 'maiden', 'seller','horse handicaps', 'official horse ratings', 'what is a green horse?'. n.b. The answer is 8 furlongs in a mile for those wanted to know

There is lots of information around and if you get chance then have a play around with Google and then get as much information as possible and have a look at different websites. However, if you haven't got a lot of time (which most people haven't) then I've narrowed the websites down which will hopefully give you some good information and could be worth a gander.

Starting off with two well known websites:

http://www.racingpost.com

and

http://www.attheraces.com

I won't say too much about them as you have probably been on them but loads of good info with ground info, stats, tips, news etc.....

As part of this learning process through reading around I realised I needed to use more statistics and factual information rather than ' Pete's wife's sister's milkman's uncle' best mate' heard a whisper about a horse in the 2.40pm at Haydock.' I didn't want to pay for this information just yet (tight wad) so I looked around for free information. One of the first sites I came across washttp://www.adrianmassey.com/index.php

Reading about the site Adrian Massey uses a computer system to rate the horses on previous data from years gone by. It does pick winners but in my opinion when I followed this for a while I realised it's not that regular, however nowhere on the site does he profess to be an expert tipper. It's a computer program. You'll see on the site that the more asterisks next to the horse the more chance he thinks the horse has. Being a silly fool I put money on most things that had an * next to it and lost a bit based on this.

An interesting site that's worth a look.

http://www.racinguk.com/page/Home/0,,12542,00.html - if you then go to 'Racecard & Results' tab it has the racecards for all the race in the UK and Ireland. Once you click into a race e.g 1.35 at Woverhampton it gives you the all the data including the jockeys/weight/trainers etc. You can also click on the form of the horse and it gives you the ground the horse was ran on, tracks, distance, weight, jockey.

If you can't afford any of the really good software just yet then this is a great aid. The more experienced I've become at betting the more I've realised how important it is to look at the past form. It's amazing sometimes when a high priced horse wins and no one expected it to win then I delve back at the horses form from months ago and you realise the horse finished first at the same or similar distance, at the same weight on the same ground and for the past 8 races he's been running the wrong distance or on the wrong ground. It does require a bit more work doing this but usually it's worth it.

There is also a tab at the top with 'statistics' on it and it gives you the 'Top Track Jockey', 'Top Track Trainers', 'Hot Trainers' , 'Hot Jockey's'.

My favourite part of this site was 'predictor' it has available for each card and it predicts the horse that has the best chance of winning. Again I followed this and it comes up with some decent results. Use it as a reference point though as I've followed the information and it will lose you money in the long run.

Finally an interesting site to use as a reference point is:

http://www.online-betting-guide.co.uk/

Have a look under 'Free Tips' then 'Horse Racing tips'. The theory of site is based on people selecting tips with an overall 'tipster comp' each month to win a small cash prize. People have to decide on their horse selections if it is to be a 'back', 'lay', 'e/w' and if it's a 'NAP' or not. It's amazing how many times I've seen well supported selections on there win races or high odd horses being placed. Go to 'Free Tips' then 'Horse Racing' and it'll give you a list of the days races and what people have gone for.

Please remember to use it as a point of reference for a bit of fun that might bring your attention to horses you may have overlooked but don't take it as the Gospel truth.

I went through a stage of cross referencing the RacingUk predictor with the Adrian Massey website with OLBG website with Facebook tips and Nathan's Holdyahorses top 3 rated. If everything matched up then I would bet on it. I had some success with this but it was very time consuming (could do this in the short 6 week summer holidays that a teacher rightly deserves), it also got very confusing and rarely did you find all three agreeing so the returns weren't worth the effort so it's not advised.

Use all sites to study and increase your knowledge but don't always take their word. Come up with your own selections using the data around and as Nathan mentioned a few weeks ago in his blog, don't bet on the horse but trial it first (with Monopoly money) to see if you are having success with your system. I'm starting to realise that betting is a bit like putting a jigsaw together and adding a piece of information here and there to get the full picture and narrow your horse down to one or two possibilities. I recommend to use Bob's trends in addition to trainer/jockey form, ground, horses results at the track, distance to build up a picture. If you want to have a bet then use the Betfair placed market instead of betting to win. This takes away the risk and you can still get some great odds. I often think this is an underrated part of betting which can give you some great value back.

Jonny's Final Thought............... (can I be sued by Jerry Springer for stealing his idea Bob? With your wallet I think you can cover it just in case they take it us to court! ;-))

I want to finish on this famous saying for you all to think about . It's very 'teacher-ish' (bad use of English for a teacher but I like the term).

The saying goes

'GIVE a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, TEACH a man to fish and you'll feed him for a life-time'.

In other words don't just follow tips or whispers, go and learn how to pick the winners yourself through reading and studying information. More often than not you will be successful.

Hope you enjoyed the blog and found some of it of use. Sorry if I've rambled on a bit again

All the best

Jonathan

P.S. I forgot to mention that if you have an iphone or android type phone then there are three great FREE apps to use for racing information

The Racing Post that gives you the cards for every race, which horses the national newspaper tipsters are backing, in running text commentary and results. It's all free and great to use when you haven't got access to a computer

RacingUK - I used to use this quite a bit as it has the ' racing predictor' for each race as I discussed early on in the. I don't really use this now but I'm always interested to see which horses they predict will win the race.

Oddschecker - I mainly use Betfair which I feel you usually get better odds but this little app will compare the main bookies to tell you the best price on a particular horse. It also tells you which horses are drifting/steaming in price. Useful tool.