Horse Racing Betting Strategy

On a bright, sunny day, when you have your pockets full and you don't know what to do, I would say just go to a race course where horse racing is in progress. The atmosphere is fantastic. If you are single, well, then you never know you might get a prize catch or just have fun seeing the beautiful four-legged beasts running in full glory. Indulge in some sports betting. Go ahead and bet on any horse you feel like and see what happens.

Betting Strategies for Horse Racing

Basics
To begin with, betting is an activity which needs the individual to have good number of gray cells, as you need to give a lot of thought to it. You need to do a lot of homework, and analysis of the horses in the race and the bets put on them. This has to be done consistently to develop a good betting strategy. There are other factors which need to be considered. For instance, anyone interested should pay close attention to the fitness of the horse. Even primary or a general information about the fitness level of the horses concerned, can be helpful while betting on horse racing. Furthermore, take a close look at horse you want to bet on. Get to know everything about the horse. For a viable and feasible horse betting strategy, check out the training as well as the previous race performances of that particular horse. Keep in mind that there is some problem if the horse has not been a part of a race for several months. Before you place any serious wager on the horse, just check whether the horse has undergone any new training program, which it has been exposed to prior to any of its wins. It is also important to know how effective that training has been. Another tip is the length of a particular race. Thus, a person betting on a horse needs to know what are the distances that horse excels in and accordingly plan his or her strategy. Hence, if a horse is known to be excellent for short distances, it would be foolish to bet on him for long distance races.

Betting System
These systems and strategies apart from factors related to the horse are also dependent on financial systems like hedging and arbitrage. Hedging refers to betting on multiple outcomes in a race and arbitraging refers (in this context) to laying the horse at a low price and backing it at a higher price. These systems are very important while determining a racing strategy. Here are a few of them.

Speed Selection: This system involves eliminating horses, on the basis of several criteria. These are -

• Discard the thought of betting on horses whose last 2 races were not on the same track as the current race you want to bet on.
• Avoid playing any race with more than 2 first time starters.
• Even if there is a difference of only a furlong (more or less) in the current race and the last race of a horse, avoid betting on that horse.
• If the horse was not leading or was not within 3 lengths of the leader at every call in his last race, eliminate the thought of betting on that horse.
• If the last two races of the horse were on a different surface, do not even consider the horse for betting.

Dutch Betting System: Not a handicapping method, this system is employed to cover a number of horses in a race. The basic premise of the system being, the more horses you bet on, the higher possibility of winning you have.

Points Based: By now I guess you must have got a hang of terms, at least on a primary level. So moving on, this system entails betting on horses and giving points to them according to the following rules. Some of those rules are -

• A horse whose trainer has a 10% winning percentage, gets 2 points.
• Check out the last 2 races of each horse and then add the total length by which each of them was defeated. It counts as nil, if the horse won the race. The horse with the lowest number in this process, will get 3 points.
• Add a point for the horse, if his last race was on turf and the current is a route race on dirt.
• A horse with a jockey having a 10% winning rate or better, wins 1 point.

There are many more intricacies and nitty-gritty involved in betting, this was just a teaser of it.

Ultimately, there is no universal tip which is foolproof and ensures a 100% win. The same holds true for a strategy. It is after all, a gamble, a risk. You cannot claim to have found the best horse betting strategy, because you cannot win 10 out of 10 times, when you gamble. It is a game of luck, people. But that does not mean that you do not do your homework and bet on the right horse! I bet that after this, you would not be betting without giving it a serious thought! This is where I sign off! All The Be(s)t!