If you bet the favourite horse to win in every race, you will probably achieve 30 to 35 percent winners and a flat bet loss. The percentage means that roughly two thirds of the races are won by horses that are not the favourite. Some of this can be explained by the favourite not being suited to the distance or surface, going off form or being out classed. By far the main reason for this phenomenon, however, is that the favourite is not suited to the pace match-up of the race. It has been said that it is not how fast the horse runs that is important, but how the horse runs fast.

Ok. Its approaching that time to stop the celebrations (went to my daughters university graduation yesterday) and refocus on betting.

How quickly the mind recovers once it’s relieved of any mental pressure! All of a sudden my confidence has returned and currently when I’m handicapping races I now find it all so easy.

Apart from the obvious relief of the house sale, the other factor that has boosted my confidence is a return to an old methodology; pace handicapping.

Over the years, as my handicapping method has developed, I’ve tried to add more and more sophistication to my approach in an attempt to make it bullet proof as I hate losing. However I forgot the fundamental fact that I was adding more and more complexity to what is a simple concept overlooked by most punters.

No race is run exactly as any other. Each race is an entity to itself and must be treated as such.

Effective pace handicapping requires that you know four things:

1. The running styles of the horses;
2. The pace figures of the horses;
3. The probable pace shape of the race;
4. The prevailing track pace bias.

Then you

a. Analysing past races to see what sort of runners have been winning.
b. Analysing the horses entered in a race to try to figure out how the race will be run.

The object is to find the horse or horses that best fit the profile of what it takes to win at the track.

I won’t outline in this post how I arrive at elements required above, however by visualising the race to determine how it will be run and which horses are disadvantaged by the prevailing race and more importantly pace conditions, you can resolve the following riddles.

• Will the horses running style be helped or hindered by the probable pace?
• Will early runners be able to hold on in the final furlong?
• Will late runners be able to catch the early horses in the final furlong?
• Will the hold-up horse drawn well, get boxed in?
• Will the front-runner be able to dominate from a good draw, or have to use up too much energy getting to the lead from a bad/wide draw?
• Does the horse have the ability to take advantage of its draw position?
• Will a contender drawn on the inside get boxed in?
• Does today’s post position (outside post) allow the horse time to clear the field before the 1st turn or based on his running style

Pretty powerful stuff and pace handicapping definitely falls into the category of data that the public is ignoring when assessing the chances of each contender.

A few more days partying the sale of the house funded by pace handicapping at the expenses of the bookies then its time to formalise the strategy (and post results) to make it the mainstay of my betting.

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