Are your ratings reliable?

We hear from members that the ratings themselves are in form, or not.  So we thought we should clear a few things up about our ratings.

Our ratings are form based.  They use over 100 pieces of data to come up with the ratings scores.

The form factors used are based on the performance of horses over a similar set of circumstances where they ran before.  Knowing this will help you determine when/where it may be prudent to discount the ratings or use them alongside other factors or ignore them altogether.

What factors may influence the validity of the scores?

Weather/Going

The big one I guess is weather.  Not only the weather on the day, which of course influences the horse performance, but also how it affects the course, so lots of rain over night, which could change the going.

This is particularly relevant if these changes happen overnight.  Our ratings are calculated from the known going at 8pm - where this changes after the scores are calculated, then the ratings should only be taken as a guide.

Change in Seasons

Moving from Jump to Flat season can create blips in the data whilst the new season beds in, and horses come into their prime for the season ahead.  

Odds

Similarly, our odds are calculated as Forecast odds, so if you check them in the morning, then you'll need to check a live odds site, like Oddschecker for the up to date odds - plus any significant movement in the odds, which will also enable you to think again about your selections.

Each rating has a form of it's own!

This is a common thing our members say about our ratings, they have good runs and bad, this is usually down to the factors making up the ratings, and in part are influenced by the factors on this page.

These are a few factors which can impact our ratings, if you know of any more, please comment below and we'll look at including them in future updates to this piece.