A Rich Source Of Winning Bets

I was looking at the speed ratings yesterday morning and in particular the forecast price of the top three rated horses in the Master column, which is the best rating for each horse in the last 12 months.

I found one or two horses that had a very good Master rating but the last three ratings were pretty poor.

They also had no decent course or distant ratings and their ability and form ratings, (those that take into account the class of race the horses have won in before and their current form figures), were also nothing to shout home about.

For all these reasons I found it easy to understand why these horses were forecast at 20/1, 25/1 and even 40/1.

Yes, these horses do win at times and in many cases it is because their recent form has all been poor so they have been steadily dropping in the handicap and may now be on or below their last winning marks.

These horses are well worth checking out, however it was one or two other horses that really caught my eye.

Good ratings and still a big forecast price

There are eight main columns on the Inform Racing race cards for the Master, Lto, Avg, M+A, Course, Distance, Ability and Form and what I noticed was a horse running at Ayr that was top or top three rated, highlighted for you in red on the race card, in six out of the eight columns.

I then saw that the horse was forecast at 20/1 in the betting and I thought this could be a good horse to watch out for later in the afternoon.

Take a look at the race card and the horse called Raspberry in the 6.20 at Ayr. You will see it is one of the top three rated in the Master column, Lto, Avg, M+A, Distance and Form yet it was forecast at 20/1.

Moreover there was only one other horse with so many highlighted ratings and this was forecast at 6/1, so I thought it would be worth backing both each way, especially as there were only 8 runners declared.

Result: Raspberry Won 14/1 (17.5 BSP)

Now not all races are the same but not only did Raspberry win - only by 5 lengths - but with Senorita Grande a non runner, the horse that came second was Sound Of Iona who had the second highest number of red ratings on the card.

Interestingly also in this rase, the 11/10 favourite Ellheidi finished only third, beaten eleven lengths and as you can see on the card above, only had one red rating for the distance and that was 5 rating points less than Raspberry.

Looking over the other races on the day.

Checking through yesterdays results, as I say there were not that many with a good number of highlighted ratings that were also forecast at a big price but there were a number of successes from these and also from those that had good ratings and weren't such big forecast prices.

So I decided that some logic and filtering was required because otherwise you would have been backing a very high number of horses on the day.

Therefore I came up with these simple rules.

1. All races of any number runners, any race type or race code.

2. The horse must have a red, top three rating in at least five of the eight main columns on the race card.

3. There can only be two runners in the same race running that have these good ratings.

4. No forecast price or starting price minimum or maximums.

Regarding point number 3, if you have a race of twelve runners and six of them have five or more red highlighted ratings, you could call that race over competitive. 

However if you have a twelve runner race and only one or two have these good ratings, you can probably say that you have found one or two bets against the field. If you can get a decent price, then it's a bonus.

Yesterdays results.

Following these simple rules yesterday gave some pretty decent results.

Total bets: 31

Wins: 8
Win strike rate: 26%
Profit to BSP after 5% commission: +33 points

Placed: 23
Placed strike rate: 74%
Profit to BSP after 5% commission: +18 points

The eight winning bets were:

2.00 Brighton: Your Mother's Eyes Won 11/4 (BSP 4.47)
2.50 Redcar: Fantastic Ms Fox Won 11/4 (4.1)
3.00 Brighton: Franz Kafka Won 8/15 (1.59)
3.40 Leicester: Victory Chime Won 11/2 (7.7)
6.20 Ayr: Raspberry Won 14/1 (17.5)
7.10 Southwell: Big Time Maybe Won 18/1 (24.0)
8.20 Ayr: Mulligatawny Won 7/2 (4.85)
8.40 Southwell: Cold Harbour Won 11/8 (2.61)

Using the forecast price as a filter - improving profit on the day.

If you did want to try and ignore the favourites or those that start with a short price, then I have added a forecast price filter on yesterdays results, which while reducing the strike rate a little, did actually improve the BSP profits.

Filter: Follow rules 1 and 2 above and add:

#. Only use horses with a forecast price of 11/2 or bigger.

This means you can use races where there are more than two with five or more red, highlighted ratings but they must be forecast on the Inform Racing race card at 11/2 or bigger. Following this rule would have given these extra winners:

Liamba Won 7/2 (4.95)
Conundrum Won 7/2 (5.17)
Tommy G Won 7/1 (8.13)
Machree Won 14/1 (17.84)

Total bets: 34

Wins: 7
Win strike rate: 21%
Profit to BSP after 5% commission: +47 points
(There is one race yesterday that I have no forecast price for but even if all three possible selections were 11/2 or bigger and all lost, it would still mean a good profit on the day.

There were 16 placed using the forecast price filter including one at 50/1, but a bit of a drop on the strike rate here, although still 47%.

The best way to play these bets.

It really depends on which way you look at the basic idea as to which set of rules you want to use.

Despite the fact that the win profit was better using the forecast price filter, I am inclined to use the original set of rules as I believe finding a race with only two horses maximum that have five or more highlighted ratings in red, narrows the field down for us to those races where you have one or two good ones against the field.

Despite the extra winners, the forecast filter does mean more of a scatter gun approach and betting in races that are possibly too competitive. I also think in the long run you will have more success with the original idea.

Conclusion

This is only the results from yesterday but I hope you can see that the speed ratings cards can provide you with a simple method that can give you a steady stream of winners.

As the Inform Racing speed ratings are not used by the forecast compilers or those who set the odds, you have an angle into a race that others don't have, just by looking at our speed ratings race cards.