Your daily selection process

[scotty657]

What is your normal routine for finding your bets for the day? For me at the moment I spend an hour or so going through the races on the Racing Post site in the morning. Or when there's a lot on like tomorrow I'll look the day before. Use Timeform for jockey and trainer form and so on as well. What about you?

[Stevet1859]

Re: Your daily selection process I like to have a look at the main trends of a race. To get a feel of the sort of horse that has won the race in the past. That can narrow down the field. Or try and pick out an improver, or an angle - new trainer - up in trip - back off a long layoff - horse not running while going is soft comes back when better ground. First time out form. Runners from other countries - why is a horse there. I'd sum it up by saying I'm looking for "something" rather than pounds per length type of comparison.

[bowles10]

Re: Your daily selection process The 3 p's Paper - pin - pen lol will get a serious reply written later :)

[Snoopdog]

Re: Your daily selection process On Mon-Fri, I mostly rely on my Daily paper. On Sat, I usually add Racing Plus and watch Morning Line. I've actually built up a system (still in refinement), more later. It takes me 5 minutes using a mix of several newspaper tipsters, RP website, SL website, recent finishes. Then throw out a few, eg large field handicaps, anything shorter than 8/11. Possibly add one or two in - eg AP McCoy on a horse, I woouldn't expect him on; or a recognised trainer vs unheared of. Only interested in UK jumps.

[bowles10]

Re: Your daily selection process

On Mon-Fri, I mostly rely on my Daily paper. On Sat, I usually add Racing Plus and watch Morning Line. I've actually built up a system (still in refinement), more later. It takes me 5 minutes using a mix of several newspaper tipsters, RP website, SL website, recent finishes. Then throw out a few, eg large field handicaps, anything shorter than 8/11. Possibly add one or two in - eg AP McCoy on a horse, I woouldn't expect him on; or a recognised trainer vs unheared of. Only interested in UK jumps.

its strange though that i dont think i have backed a horse in last 5 years based on a newspaper selection, not saying it isn''t right to follow the papers as they are much like us, they put the hours in etc however we have the benefit of waiting until saturday whereas they have to meet deadlines on friday night. My process is mainly around my trends but for other bets i rarely look beyond a select number of trainers so look at their S/R at the course etc and general trainer form,. I also look at jockeys and like to choose apprentices on the flat when i feel they are worth their claim. For horses themselves, i like to consider course form, OR and ground. Put all of that into the mix!!

[south_eastern_ram]

Re: Your daily selection process Treat it like a puzzle, looks for an angle, cover all aspects of the horses form to decide what prices are value. I get little enjoyment/satisfaction out of blindly following tipsters, trends or systems.

[TheBoyRooney]

Re: Your daily selection process take around hour to look at few sets of speed and weight picks the night before.Midweek take about 20 minutes.Then I have shortlist.Then I just wait for markets to form and keep eye on markets every half hour. I back if one of my shortlist shows a betting pattern.If they dont move I dont back em.

[bowles10]

Re: Your daily selection process there is the V word also isn't there is your selection a 2/1 shot going off at 4/1 ? The only way you can do this is to make a tissue, and this takes time, a lot of time unless you have something you can plug all the runners into to make it quicker I am thinking of doing 1 race on a saturday to see what i can get in terms of VALUE, i do notice that mostly my winners are shorter at SP than EP. So the majority of winners were possibly a bigger price beforehand. Take the lincoln tomorrow, CAptain Bertie is a trends selection in my thread but plenty short enough as having to back 2 others also which i took at 25's. In that race, i would want 8 or 9/1 the field but the bookies like to make a fav around the 5/1 mark.

[BillyHills]

Re: Your daily selection process For my personal betting i specialise in Novice Hurdlers, cant cope with all the racing nowadays! Do my own ratings so use them before anything else really. So i generally will look at those first and if they are a poor bunch of races i will quickly look to see what else is on offer. Very rarely bet on the flat except at the Festivals like Ascot, Goodwood and York. Only use the Racing Post these days due to lack of time to make anything worth the asking price and check the odds on a comparison site. Have used Raceform and Timeform plus many others in the past and enjoy using them but you need loads of time to get the value out of them as they are so expensive. Never look at daily papers, not bought a paper for years, even read the news on the Ipad and anyway as Rob said they have to pick their selections on the afternoon before without any odds to look at and not knowing what the correct going is, hiding to nothing. Try writing an article the day before a race to meet a deadline, its not great.

[Trotter]

Re: Your daily selection process I've got a bit lazy over the last year or so and this has affected my selection process I used to concentrate on the All Weather handicaps and use my own speed figs, my own stamina ratings plus in depth 'handicapping' ............I take on average about 10 to 15 minutes per horse............:unsure My laziness now means that i rarely look at races with more than 5 or 6 runners.............the Lincoln would take me about 5 or 6 hours !................. Given that I'm looking for 4 or 5 runner races I've starting looking in the jumps as well to find races Generally I look at the favourite and if I think it will win I move on to the next race until I find a favourite that I think will lose then I look at the other runners to find one to beat it. A lot of my bets/selections are 2nd favourites in 4-6 runner races Every now and then I just back a big price EW shot on a whim after a cursory glance through the card..............I'm sure we all do that ! In the olden days I'd be looking at AW handicaps with average 10 runners............maybe looking at 2 races a day. But I haven't got the concentration to do that now................:loon. I just use the Post these days............I used to like the Free Timeform site when it had the 'spotlight' type comments down the left hand side but they did away with that I used to use the Life but I can't use it since the big 'downgrade' a year or so ago. I can't find racecards on there.............don't know if it's my computer or what but when I click on what purports to be a racecard I just get a list of horses with their silk colours.....I've given up with it I think the Post site has everything you need.................

[BillyHills]

Re: Your daily selection process http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/meeting/doncaster/30-03-2013/fast-cards No trouble with the Life for me Trotter?

[Trotter]

Re: Your daily selection process This is what I get when i click on the Lincoln......... http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/racecards/30-03-2013/doncaster/racecard/553784/william-hill-lincoln-heritage-handicap-str no jockey, no trainer, no OR, no form figures

[robertob]

Re: Your daily selection process

This is what I get when i click on the Lincoln......... http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/racecards/30-03-2013/doncaster/racecard/553784/william-hill-lincoln-heritage-handicap-str no jockey, no trainer, no OR, no form figures

According to what you said it doesn't look like the picture below for you, right? In this case I think you might be able to solve the problem pretty easily though as it should be a cache and cookies problem. Simply clear the cache and cookies /internet history in your browser settings and it should work fine for you again. Otherwise, what sort of browser do you use? Some old/outdated browser versions of the Internet Explorer are often problematic...

[Trotter]

Re: Your daily selection process It's just got me stumped............ when I click in my own link above I get the full card in the little window (but with age, wt, jock, trainer, OR under the horses name not on the same line) but when I go full screen all the form figs, jockey, trainer etc disappear.............. I've got my internet set at 150% magnification...............when I go down to 100% all the stuff disappears as well.............. I'm on IE8..............I'll try deleting cookies but I'm sure I've tried that already What's the 'cache' thing robert ?...............how do i do that ?................:unsure

[robertob]

Re: Your daily selection process Okay, if you deleted the cookies you also should have deleted the cache as it's done in the same option as far as I know. But IE8 is a pretty old version. I think it would wise to update it, think the newest version is 10. In general I'd advise to use a different browser anyway, like firefox or chrome, which are both working perfectly well with almost every single website.

[Trotter]

Re: Your daily selection process cheers robert...............as it goes I've got Chrome already but I never use it Just tried it and I get the full racecard on Chrome................:clap thanks a lot robert..............:ok

[cpo]

Re: Your daily selection process For big handicaps like the Lincoln I will often use previous trends of the race to narrow the field down as much as possible. I don't stick to these 100% as with todays Lincoln, you would discount Brae Hill on the age trend but his record in the race can't be ignored so I don't really think you can rule him out. Once I have got it narrowed down, I will then look at things like trainer form, jockey form, ground, draw, distance, course form and even days since last run. This should help get it down to less than 5 runners and then you can really get stuck into the form of each horse and watch as many race reply's as possible. I find this works for me, but I don't proclaim to be an expert and I only do this as a hobby. Take the Spring Mile today for example, if I follow a horse and see it is running then I will just back it regardless of the other runners. I have done that today with Educate. I haven't even looked at the race but thought last season this horse was worth following so I have backed it.

[robertob]

Re: Your daily selection process

cheers robert...............as it goes I've got Chrome already but I never use it Just tried it and I get the full racecard on Chrome................:clap thanks a lot robert..............:ok

That's great mate. Happy that it works for you now. :)

[Blazing Bailey]

Re: Your daily selection process On the jumps I use the RP spotlight comments to narrow down anything that cant win or has traits that I dont like (poor jumper, doesnt finish race etc) and then go through the form in more detail to seperate the wheat from the chaff. I tend to find that they like to favour the big yards and hype horses but most of the time if you actually look at what they achieved then it actually amounts to very little. On the flat, its all about figures and identifying which ones are consistently high and which ones are open to improvement. In the big handicaps its not always the most progressive that wins but the one who has the conditions most in their favour. I do a little tick box of trip, class, running style and draw (also include jockey on the AW) with the hope that the highest rated on my list also fit these conditions perfectly. If they dont, then I identify whether they are value and make a decision.

[bully3061]

Re: Your daily selection process A thread that has me intrigued as there is no right or wrong answer and i may get a snippet off someone which may help me. I currently use Atr Rp and Hrb. Trainers are key so i narrow down to 4 then look more into the jockey if they are in the top 4 in the race i move on then to seeing if the horse is well handicapped in the right class, will go on the ground and get the trip. After that its about getting a price bigger than it should.

[scotty657]

Re: Your daily selection process Good stuff guys. :ok

[harrisman]

Re: Your daily selection process Most interesting reading. I guess one of the problems these days is the tremendous amount of information easily obtainable-what to do with it is the difficulty. a lot of my initial selections these days come from horses I have noted down to follow under what may be suitable conditions for their next run.There is so much racing these days that specialising is the only way-that way you can get a real understanding of trainers habits etc,which to me is fundamental when considering the make up of a race.I am particularly interested in some of the smaller 'quirkier' track suited to specialists and jockey stats and combinations are important for me. However the first thing I always look at is the 5 year record of favourites at the track in the different race types in non handicaps and handicaps.Some tracks are graveyards for favourites. One other area I am becoming particularly interested in that is the breeding. An old friend who was an owner at one time makes a lot of his selctions when he occassionaly bets purely on the breeding-with pretty good results- a very interesting angle Once this has been considered I will look at the form etc

[mowgli77]

Re: Your daily selection process I prefer 8-10 runner races, ideally over 1m or further on the flat, less hard luck stories (poor break from stalls, poor draw) and most horses have got at least 1m to get a racing position and they usually work themselves out over the first few furlongs. I also prefer listed and group races or handicaps that are class 3 and above as they are usually trying rather than running a handicap mark down. I prefer progressive horses that look to be going places rather then the old timers that will eventually drop to a winnable mark. When I look at the race I read the comments from the RP site, look into the form (ground, trip, class) and then click through to see what other horses from previous races have done. Does anyone know if there is an easy way of doing this on the RP site? I know ATR have a formscan type thing and in the RP paper they have a racetracker type thing that tells you how many won, placed or unplaced next time out from that specific race you're looking at. Ground is probably the most important for me and then trip and class followed by trainer form, course form, race fitness (ideally run within 35 days). I work backwards so I figure out which ones can't win and have a rough idea of what odds they will be. I try narrow it down to the main contenders and then use RP notes to try and work out a 100% tissue, really easy on RP site, you allocate odds and it works out the % total for the book. I then adjust prices here and there until it looks about right and try figure out if there is any value in the horse I fancy or in the field at all. An example would be yesterday at Donny, I had Jack Dexter as a 15-8 chance on my 100% book yet 5-2 was available but also had Regal Parade a point or two shorter than what was on offer and fancied them two against the field. There is one thing that can be exploited and that is when a horse has finished 2nd or 3rd in a maiden. They often get overrated and go off very short next time out, providing little value at all. You could either lay the fav or find an alternative to take it on with. I try to stick to a rule not to back anything in a maiden that hasn't had a run so if it's a field of unraced horses I'd prefer to take a watching brief unless something stands out at he prices or in the parade ring. This rule can work against you too, back in 2007 saw Loch Jipp in the paddock at Ponty, was absolutely huge and looked great, a few of us commented on it and left it alone. It flew past the post in 1st place and returned with an SP of 50-1. :wall I like to have a list od horses to follow, more so because I have an opinion on them and I'm looking out for ideal conditions and a decent price. I won't back them blindly though. I think if you go to the course quite often or watch a lot of replays (several times) you can get an edge over the odds compilers. Seeing a horse boil over in the parade ring and then run badly might be a reason not spotted by others, seeing a horse hampered at a crucial time and given another chance, seeing a jockey basically stop riding all things to look out for. You can look at racing from the point of view of identifying mistakes made by humans (odds compilers) and exploiting them for profit. :)