How to pick a Winning Horse

A day out at the races needs preparation if you are hoping to pick a winner on the day. Even for those who prefer to place a bet while sitting in front of the TV, studying the form of the horses and riders will give invaluable advice and insight into which horses are more likely to romp home first. Here are some guidelines to follow for those who are inexperienced in betting on the horses, to make the most of your chances of winning big.

To pick a winner you need to know about the jockey and the trainer, not just the horse. Without good training and with the wrong jockey on the day a potential winning horse can do quite badly. The experience and skill set of a trainer is indicative of how well a horse will perform. Check out the trainer’s previous wins and see how well he ranks.

Again with the jockey, look at his past races and how many wins he has had. Particularly if the jockey has ridden the same horse before, it’s good to know the distance ridden and how well he did with the horse you may be betting on.

Take a look at the race card of each horse. This will tell you previous placements in races but only for the top three. This figure will be listed in numbers next to the horse’s name. If the number is low, this means the horse has failed to make the top three many times before.

Often a horse will be placed in a class higher than it is used to. This means it may not be an easy race for the horse to win. The easiest way to tell if there is a good chance of it winning is to look at the odds given. To find out which bookies are offering the best odds check out odds comparison sites such as freebets.org/bets as they will give you all the bookies odds and where to place your bet.

A horse with odds of 3/1 or less makes for a reasonably safe bet, or as safe as it ever can be. However, if the odds were high for example 25/1 you would get a much higher pay out if you pick a winner because the chances of that horse winning at all are incredibly slim in the eyes of the bookies.

Betting each way on a horse will also increase the chances of a win as the horse will only have to finish in the top three or top four, to give you a return on your stake. Again, the return will not be high and the stake will be double that of just betting on an outright winner.

With a little research, a gamble on a horse can give a person a much higher chance of success than using sheer guesswork, be wise to be a winner!