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The 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.
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