HTML clipboardThe art and process of form analysis explained.....
In this article we will go through the process of explaining what
we do on a race to race basis to determine what are the winning chances in a
race. This article is designed to give site users a better guide of the depth we
go to in analysing races for Australian horse racing. Different reference tools
are used for other countries of racing but basically the process is similar
across the board.
Because there is so many factors that effect a horse race it is rather an
exhaustive process to analyse a race and generally the process for any race
depending on how many runners are in the field can vary from half an hour to 2
hours, sometimes more.
TRACK CONDITIONS, RAIL PLACEMENTS, WEATHER & HORSE
ABILITY ON VARYING SURFACES
Before we even start looking at what horses are in a race we need to assess the
potential conditions the runners will face, different horses act differently on
different surfaces, some do not like wet tracks, some do not like rock hard
tracks. Some may ask how do we know what horses like what type of track
conditions and most people will tell you this can be assessed by looking at
their past performances on varying types of surfaces and this is partly true but
there is more involved. Some people will tell you that certain breeds of horses
like certain track types, why is this so. A lot of people think it comes down to
the sire but that is not necessarily correct, many horses throw to the dams side
of the family. The most important factor effecting a horses ability to handle
wet tracks for instance is in their action. To analyse this factor you need
access to video analysis of each horses action, it is paramount. This relates
back to their breeding. Has the horse thrown to the sire's side or to the dam's
side, in answering this question you will generally be able to work out if a
horse is going to handle wet tracks. Horses do not get better on wet tracks,
simply some horses do not perform on wet tracks which makes it seem sometimes
like the horses that do handle it have improved, this is a common mistake made
by many form analsysts.
Generally you can gain access to potential track conditions up to 2 days before
a race and when you line them up with the weather conditions likely up to the
beginning of a meeting you can get a good gauge on what you will be
encountering. The other important factor to take into account when looking at
this area is the effect of where the rail will be placed. In Australia we have
moveable rails on turf race tracks which means for each meeting the race club
and curator will determine where the rail will be placed so as to hopefully get
the most even playing surface or if it is in the middle of a carnival they may
move the rail on certain days so that so much racing does not cause fast lanes
or chop up tracks in one area. We use numerous different sources to access this
information.
THE BARE FORM & FACTS OF THE HORSE FORM
Once we have assessed the likely "playing conditions" we then need to look at
the form of each horse, some form analysts will tell you that other factors need
to be looked at first like gear changes and pace scenarios, they are factors
that add to the potential performance of horses so as far as we are concerned
their effect needs to be assessed after the bare natural form and scope for
improvement associated to each horse has been assessed. The natural form of a
horse forms what we call a base rating, other factors are additions or
subtractions to the base rating to give you a final performance figure so they
need to be assessed later.
When assessing the form of each horse in a race it can be a tricky process and a
much varying process depending upon whether you are dealing with seasoned G1
Weight for Age performers or seasoned class 6 country gallopers or a field full
of maidens. In the instance of dealing with maidens or lightly raced 2 year olds
or 3 year olds breeding becomes paramount and knowledge of breeding is a big
pre-requisite. Some form analysts will tell you there is no point betting on
maiden races or 2yo races, they say this because it is too hard for them or
their knowledge is too limited but the bottom line fact is that there is so much
hidden upside associated to horses with scope for further improvement such as
maidens or 2 year olds or lightly raced 3 year olds that generally it creates
good value betting opportunities. Because the form of a horse is unexposed in a
lot of these situations the general betting public does not understand their
true level or scope for improvement so some horses are under bet creating great
opportunities for serious form analysts like us that do understand how to take
into account the potential factors and can assess these types of races and
horses.
As we have said, in lightly raced horses or 1st starters breeding becomes
paramount, their is numerous sources to alert you to the breeding of a horse, it
is not as simple as knowing the sire, you also need to look at the female side
of the family and in most instances, not just the dam, but also the 2nd and 3rd
dam to ascertain where the ability in the family lies. There is plenty of
instances where a dam has not raced or was injured at a young age or simply did
not perform on the track for one reason or another, this does not mean she will
be no good in the breeding barn, plenty of top line horses come from mares that
were under performed or not raced at all, in these instances the 2nd dam and 3rd
dam become vitally important in assessing their potential ability. As we have
said this article is generally about Australian horse racing and with this in
mind you can access sites like the Australian Stud Book,
www.studbook.org.au to get detailed
family histories of horses including race records, pedigree records and past
stakes winners from the female side of any horse. Many horses in Australia come
from overseas families and not all stakes race results are recorded in the
Australian Stud Book so you also need to use sites like
www.pedigreequery.com and
www.brisnet.com and
www.racingpost.co.uk when dealing with
foreign female families. Most of these sites are paid subscription sites which
turns a lot of people off using their more detailed data but like anything if
you want a true edge against the betting public you either need to put in the
hard work or pay to get the best information to give you the edge required. We
use all of these tools when analysing each race so if you either don't want to
do the hard work or don't want to subscribe to these sites then the next best
answer is to subscribe to one of our services to give you the edge required
knowing the hard work has been done by true professionals to give you the edge
you need.
Another area of horse form in lightly raced horses that is totally under valued
is trial form. There is plenty of occasions where a horse does not perform well
at their first few starts but has shown very good potential in public barrier
trials prior. Generally if a horse fails at its first few starts good odds will
be bet about it later on down the track but a small gear change and hot trial
form prior may spark vast improvement and give you a winner at big odds simply
because its true ability has been under estimated because of a few failures.
Most general form guides on the internet do not give you access to detailed
trial results or if they do it is generally not detailed results or it is
missing a lot of trials at regional tracks which paints an incomplete picture.
We source the best form tools available to man. We use a service called
www.southcoastdatabase.com.au
which records detailed results of all races run in Australia and New Zealand and
all Australian trials from every track around Australia. In discussing form
analysis and the best form tools available there is no comparison to Southcoast
Databases that we know of on the internet that gives you so much detail.
Southcoast is not a tool for the faint hearted, it is a balls and all form
analysis tool that gives you access to a database of the most comprehensive form
analysis available, don't mistake it for a site that will give you racing tips.
It is purely a form analysis tool for true professional handicappers like us.
The form analysis of each horse is not just about seeing if they have won
recently or what they have done recently, it is also about knowing what every
other horse that they have competed against has since done and previously done,
by having access to these records you can easily assess the true class of race
instead of just going off the advertised class, there is plenty of instances
where a $12K Class 2 race in country Victoria throws up 5 subsequent winners in
quick succession making it a very strong form race and a race that is well above
the true $12K Class 2 level assigned to it. Having access to detailed comments
associated to the run of each horse is also vitally important, good video
comments are hard to come by, reading a race from video and writing proper
comments that form a picture when doing form analysis is an art unto itself and
not many people are particularly good at it. A comment that reads "settled 4th,
5th 800m, 3rd 400m, made up good ground, just beaten by one better" is an
example of a bad video comment about as horses performance. A good example of
the same performance would be "evenly away, pushed along to settle 4th -3l
chasing a fast pace, pace slowed middle stages, came 2 wide -3l 600m out as
tempo started to increase, leader skipped 4l clear top of stretch, held up
looking for runs, got clear 200m out, flashed big pars late, hit line hard
beaten 0.5l, good margins 3rd, leader dominated slow tempo race, only one to
make up significant ground, very good merit, better for further", this comment
allows you to paint a true picture of what actually happened in the race. We
will discuss later on the importance of video analysis in the whole picture of
forming a view on a race.
So once we have been through the form of each horse in a race by looking at
their past runs and what has happened to other horses in the race prior and
since each race we will form a base rating for each horse. This base rating is
not only a gauge to their past performance ability but also needs to take into
account each horses scope for improvement naturally and scope for worse
performance under the race conditions they encounter in this race.
Next thing to do is to look at other factors that may effect their performance
in this race which effect the base rating of each horse through a series of
additions or minuses to the base ratings, the level of effect of each conditions
is one of speculation for each handicapper but the bottom line factor here is
that only experience of handicapping horse racing over long periods of time will
give a handicapper the ability to assess the true effect of each condition.
THE EFFECT OF PACE SCENARIOS & BARRIERS, DEFINING
SPEED MAPS AND LIKELY PRESSURE
The next thing we look at is pace scenarios and barriers. They go hand in hand
together. The reason that these two factors work hand in hand together is
relatively simple. The position a horse takes up in a race a lot of the time
will be effected by the barrier they have drawn. Most race horses have preferred
running styles, some are leaders, some are on pace runners, some like to come
from off the pace and others are backmarkers.
Take for example a leader who is drawn in barrier 15 with 5 other potential on
pacers / leaders drawn inside it on a tight turning track where they only have
150m to run before they hit the first turn, what does the jockey do, does he use
up early energy and go forward and try to cross the face of the field and risk
getting caught 4 or 5 deep into the first bend and the push on to try and lead,
unless that horse has blistering gate speed it is likely it will use up too much
energy early in the race and not be able to close off with big pars in the
latter stages, or does he go against the horses natural racing style and race in
a stalking or off the pace position and hope the other leaders cut each other up
on the front end. It is factors like this that effect the potential performance
of each horse in a race.
Another example may be a horse that is an off the pace runner and at its last
few starts has benefited from fast early tempos and has been given every chance
to close off to the best of its ability coming from off the pace on tracks that
have elongated stretch runs (straights) and is now in a race that is on a tight
turning track with only a short straight and the overall pace scenario will be
much slower because there is only 1 or 2 potential leaders engaged. It is likely
that this horse has been what we call "fluked and flattered" by the fast pace
scenarios and big tracks in those previous races and a deduction has to be made
to its performance level in this race.
The bottom line here is that the effect of barriers and pace scenarios is one of
the most under rated factors in horse racing on future and past performances
alike and a lot of the time is the difference between a horse winning and
running well below par.
Drawing up a speed map for a race is a relatively simple task one may think and
it looks that way when you assess the preferred racing style of each horse but
you also have to take into account potentially what jockeys will do if they
think there horse is going to not be suited by the barrier they have drawn, a
lot of the time jockeys will choose to ride their mounts outside of their normal
racing pattern because of the barrier, this is the hardest factor to assess when
building a speed map for a race and working out the potential race pace.
Another factor that is generally mis-understood by a lot of inexperienced form
analysts is the difference between speed and pace in a race and the effect on
pressure it creates. Speed refers to the ability of an individual horse while
pace refers to the overall tempo a race is likely to be run at. These factors go
hand in hand is predicting likely pressure. An example of this is you may have 5
high early speed horses in a race that will create a fast early pace with high
pressure. The same race with only 2 high early speed horses will create also a
fast pace race but the pressure associated will be a lot less.
GEAR CHANGES, OFTEN UNDER-RATED AND GENERALLY NOT
UNDERSTOOD
The next factors to look at after you have made adjustments to performance
ratings for barriers and pace scenarios is the effect of gear changes. When
looking at gear changes you may also need to look again at the effect of the
pace scenarios because a lot of the time a gear change such as blinkers 1st time
may effect how a horse is effected by the pace scenario. Some form analysts will
look at gear changes before they look at pace scenarios but we feel they will
then over-play the effect of the gear changes. It is definitely better to look
at gear changes after pace scenarios have been identified.
There is so many different types of gear changes that will effect the potential
performance of a horse and a lot of the time a gear change will be a sign of
desperation from a trainer to get a horse to perform better. It really is an art
form to predict the effect of gear changes and how much effect they will have.
Only an experienced eye will get it right more times than not. The obvious ones
that most form analysts know how to account for are blinkers on 1st time or
blinkers off 1st time but that is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak.
Numerous different sites on the internet offer information on the general effect
of gear changes. It is important if you are serious about form study to learn
these varying effects inside out and upside down just like when you were at
school in the early years learning your 12X tables. If you don't learn them or
think they are not important then give the game away before you even start.
Personally as form analysts we have spent a lot of time quizzing certain jockeys
about what they feel are the true effect of gear changes over the years to get a
better understanding of how they feel they will effect different horses.
Included in the area of gear changes are other factors that are not actually
gear changes. When a horse has been gelded it is noted in the gear change
section of a form guide. This is another factor that is consistently overlooked
by punters. Once a horse is gelded generally it will race a lot more true and
improve.
THE EFFECT OF WEIGHT & AGE
Most handicappers know the old Don Scott analogy, 1.5kg is equivalent to 1
length and this is basically true. To handicap a race just on weight is not good
enough these days, because so many form analysts know the effect of weight and
how to interpret it the edge associated to it being used as a tool alone is now
devoid. Don Scott was an absolute genius and his weight ratings have stood the
test of time but the edge to be had with them on Australian racing is now gone.
In The USA is you tried to suggest that you can handicap a race tot5ally of
weight ratings you would be laughed at because in The USA they are all about
Beyer Speed figures and the times a horse can run. The effect of Beyer Speed
figures as a sole tool in The USA and the effect of weight ratings in Australia
are the same, they are both over played by each respective country hence losing
their value edge.
When handicapping a race weight must be still taken into account, we are not
saying otherwise but what we are saying that it is not enough alone to give you
an edge over the general betting public. It is infact totally the opposite,
because people overplay the importance of weight ratings a lot of the time a
horse will be over-bet because it gets a weight turn around vs a horse that beat
it at its previous start, sometimes it will be overbet to an extent that it
creates good value about the other horse that is worse off at the weights. We
must remember the weight rule of 1.5kg equals a length is a theory, it is not
always correct when you take into account other factors such as pace scenarios.
Another factor that is commonly misunderstood by the general betting public is
the effect of age during different times of the year, this is especially
prevalent when we talk about 3 year olds taking on older horses. I*t is
paramount that you understand how the weight for age scale works when betting on
3year olds verse older horses, plenty of times you will get a hot young 3yo
taking on older horses in what seems a certain kill for it early in the season
because it has much superior a record but it is hard for 3 year olds to beat
older horses early in the year, that horse will generally be over bet and get
beat. All we can say here is take the time to learn the weight for age scale
back the front if you want to take handicapping of horse racing seriously.
VIDEO ANALYSIS AND BLACKBOOKING - A TIME CONSUMING
& HIGHLY DETAILED PAST TIME
Another area of overall form analysis that is absolutely crucial if you want to
gain an edge is the art of video analysis. This involves watching race replays
and finding horses with hidden merit or horses that have been fluked and
flattered. Most people think this is all video analysis is about but even
further more video analysis is about understanding individual horses
idiosyncrasies. A lot of horses do not like to race inside other horses, they
are field shy, it is factors like this that you must be able to keep note of for
future reference especially when looking at barriers and gear changes. A horse
that does not like being cluttered up inside other runners may be drawing a wide
gate for the first time in its career and will improve by being able to race
outside other horses. A horse may consistently lay in and be green during its
first few career starts but a certain gear change will rectify that problem.
These are all factors that are identified through video analysis. To seriously
video analyse a horse race you need to watch a race as a minimum the same amount
of time as per how many runners there are in a race. If there is 8 runners in a
race you should watch it a minimum of 8 times. Every horses needs to be watched
individually from start to finish to see every factor that effects them.
Any one serious about video analysis not only needs to watch replays but needs
to then record all races and keep a database log of all races run for a minimum
of the last 2 years in our view. This is a massive task and can not be handled
by one person if you are talking about racing all over Australia. Our experience
suggests to seriously video analyse an 8 race meeting it takes a minimum of 4-5
hours of work.
A lot of people make the common mistake when doing video analysis of thinking a
horse has produced a very good performance when it has won by 3 lengths widening
the margin as it hit the line and it was still strong on the line so it will be
better over longer trips. This is not necessarily true, was it a fast pace early
that set the race up for backmarkers? There is every chance this horse was
fluked and flattered. This is a term we use to describe a horse that has had a
lot of favours during the run that have made its performance more impressive
than it truly was.
Blackbooking is an art that is not only about highlighting impressive
performances with good merit but it is also about highlighting horses that have
been fluked and flattered because generally they will be over-bet by the mass of
the betting public next time they start creating good value about other horses
in the race they are in.
In our race write-ups we put on our site regularly we talk about hidden merit,
hidden merit is something that is not seen by reading a form guide and is
generally only identified through high class video analysis creating good value
about a horse because generally most of the betting public does not know how to
identify it. We will not discuss what actually makes a case for hidden merit as
that gives away too much of our edge but it is a paramount factor that you can
only learn through years of experience of watching past race replays over and
over again.
There is many sites on the internet that offer black booking tools, by this we
mean that you can enter the name of a horse into their database and then an
email will be sent to you next time that horse is engaged to race, some are
better than others and some are more reliable than others!
TRAINERS & JOCKEYS
Some form analysts over play the importance of trainers and jockeys, yes there
is smart trainers who place their horses sensationally and produce very good
strike rates, yes there is above average jockeys and below par jockeys. A
conversation I had personally with Melbourne Cup winning jockey Greg Hall one
day was very interesting. I asked Greg what he felt the true effect a jockey had
on a horses performance level, in that I wanted to define what effect a leading
jockey felt he had on a horses potential performance when he was at his prime.
Greg's answer was that he felt a jockey at the top of his game could improve a
horse 4-5 lengths if he got all the luck and read the race make up perfectly.
4-5 lengths is a hell of a lot of improvement to take into account for the
ability of a jockey and putting it into terms of assessing the make up of a
horses chances in a race it can really skew the ratings associated to a horse.
After a long debate Greg agreed with me that the best way to tackle this
conundrum was to give extra credit to a horses potential performance when a hot
jockey was engaged. He agreed totally with the fact that sometimes hot jockeys
become more confident and would take chances to help a horse win that they
normally would not if their confidence was not so great. So the best way to take
this into account is that you can be more confident with your betting when you
know you have a good jockey on board but to give a horse extra ratings points
because a certain jockey is engaged is to flirt with danger of wrecking your
ratings too much and skewing their true value chance and then also the true
value chance of other horses in the same race.
A saying he gave me that day has always rang loud and clear to me and it is
probably the most important thing we can say about jockeys and their effect. A
good jockey can not make a bad horse win but a bad jockey can make a good horse
lose!
Trainers are a completely different story, certain trainers have a knack with
early 2yo's (David Hayes when he first came back from Hong Kong) and getting
them to win, other trainers are very good with certain breeds (Peter Snowden
with the Lonhro progeny currently (time of writing 2010) as he was stable
foreman to Hawkes when they trained Lonhro), some trainers generally place their
horses to exception (John Size in Sydney before he went to Hong Kong, Peter
Moody currently in Melbourne (time of writing 2010) are 2 examples that spring
to mind).
Some stables are big betting stables and confidence can be increased about a
horses chances when strong money comes for it in the betting ring or on the
exchanges where liquidity is open and can be viewed.
The only way you will truly get a grasp on the effect of trainers is to study
racing for a long period and know it inside out. So this means involvement for a
long time. It takes years.
MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL
Once we have taken all the factors into account and come up with the final
ratings for a race we then need to work out how to put that into price
terminology and form a betting market to decipher where the true value lies in
the betting. The secret here is you need to convert your ratings into a percent
chance each horse has of winning the race. When forming a betting market the
most important thing is to form it to a market percentage of 100%, not 115% that
you may encounter the market set to when betting with the TAB or bookmaker. That
extra percentage is how they make their money. Most people don't know how to
frame a market. Well that is good as far as we are concerned because it means
most people will take unders about a horse without even knowing they are taking
unders giving us more of an advantage because we know how to frame a market. For
those who want to learn we will give you the one simple rule to help you get
started. Ever heard the saying "head or tails, you a 50/50 chance of being
right." There is a 50% chance of heads coming up on a coin toss and 50% chance
of tails coming up, there is only 2 outcomes. 100%/50% = 2.00 or even money,
true odds about a 50% chance of either of those results happening is even money,
1/1 or 2.00 in decimal format. So divide 100% by the percent chance you think a
horse has of winning a race to get its true odds.
So that gives you a basic run down of the process we go through when we assess
the chances of each horse in any particular race. It is an exhausting task and
not simple by any means. You can not take short cuts, If you want to win long
term you must take all angles into perspective to give yourself an edge over the
general betting public.
Obviously most people neither have the time of the experience to do it, hence
why we offer the services we do. All of our services are very good but the
service that will give you the best edge when considering value long term is
Advantage Ratings as it is the raw output of the form analysis we do for every
race based on the final price we think each winning chance should start.
To find out more about our services such as Deluxe Win Betting, Advantage Ratings, Live Betting and more go to our main website at
www.fromthehorsesmouth.com.au
