Help! Form Ratings has stopped finding winners
Form is the record of a horse’s performance in previous races. Here at Form Ratings we use over 100 different ‘Form Factors’ to deduce the ratings that you see.
Each of our Super Six ratings use a different combination of these form factors to come up with their ratings. This helps explain why some ratings perform better under different conditions. Find out more about this on our Super Six page.
Back to studying form:
Many view past performance as a strong indication of how it could perform on its next run. This is the common method of selecting horses to back. Form Ratings helps you by scoring the horses on 6 different factors, combining all the factors which make up form, so you don’t have to.
In short, Form Ratings help our members make better betting decisions by making the study of form easier.
When all things are equal, Form is really the best guide to the future performance of the horses. When things are not equal, then this is where ratings become less reliable.
Our most successful members know this, and use it to their advantage when selecting their horses for the day.
The Inequalities
These can be any changes which the horse may have today, that they haven’t had in the past. Course, Distance and Jockey are of course really big indicators, as is the going and the weather. The length of time between races is also a major factor too.
These inequalities lead to the ratings being less consistent or effective.
Knowing which inequalities affect the performance of the ratings can help us determine how to mitigate against these, by changing our qualifying criteria, or being more selective about the races we bet on.
When might the ratings be less effective?
There’s a few times a year when the ratings need to settle and build up a picture of each horse, the obvious one is the start of a season. Jumps horses tend to only enter jumps races, the same is true for flat, so when the season starts, horses haven’t been raced competitively for a long period of time, so form is less accurate. Also new horses are brought into the mix, as they’ve developed over the close season, so can influence the results of races too.
Until there’s some fresh results in the data, the ratings may be skewed a little and so less effective.
Weather - can play a big part in the race, and as such should be factored in to your thoughts when making selections. Not only the current conditions, but also any changes from overnight. Our ratings are calculated at 8pm the night before the race, so anything that changes between then and the race, will affect the effectiveness of the ratings. Bad weather is definitely up there with one of the things you should factor in.
Going - this too can change with the weather. Unlike the weather, going is one of the Form Factors used to calculate a number of our Super Six. So if this changes between 8pm and the race, you will need to factor that into your selection criteria too.
No Data - Early in the season, and for some smaller races/courses there will be more novice horses, or those just stepping up to new race types. This can mean the data isn’t complete, you may find columns with missing or low scores in them. This can make it tricky to compare with the rest of the field, as there’s no data to say whether they are a good horse, or not, whether they will stonk the field or lumber around.
How can we Mitigate the Inequalities?
Obviously the first piece of advice is not to bet, if any of these factors affect you and you’ve no strategy for such inequalities.
Not all races are the same. So we can look to those races which provide a more consistent race experience for the horses, looking to the All Weather tracks. These remove the going changes from the equation, which would make some of the ratings more effective.
In England, we have six All-Weather tracks with a Polytrack racing surface at Kempton, Chelmsford and Lingfield and a Tapeta racing surface at Newcastle, Wolverhampton and Southwell.
All Weather Tracks - UK & Ireland
- Chelmsford
- Dundalk (Ireland)
- Lingfield
- Kempton
- Newcastle
- Southwell
- Wolverhampton
Prize fund - the bigger the races, the better the calibre of course, race and horse. Those with big prizes usually attract horses which have better consistency, through training and suitability. Less is put to chance by the trainers and owners.
Only select horses where the race card has a full dataset for all horses running.
Avoid races which are at the start of the seasons, use our ratings with Racing Post for example to find out when the horses last run - to reduce the influence of long periods between races. Or again use the All Weather courses, which tend to race year round, so long spells are less likely. Overlap with Irish racing, their seasons start and end differently, and National Hunt racing is year round.
You do not have to place a bet on every race.
All strategies will not work with all races. Our ratings should not be the sole factor for making your selections, but should be used with strategies to make better betting decisions.