Using The Speed Rating Class Pars

The speed ratings will provide you with a number of ways to find winners. But what about using the speed rating class pars to narrow down the field?

You can see the class par for each race in the race header at the top of each race card, followed by an H.

The class par figure, shows the average winning speed rating from previous races such as today's. Going by race class, age group and whether the race is a handicap or not.

This figure means that a horse will need to have rated at the class par or better to get competitive in a race such as this.

The H is the highest ever rating achieved in this race type, class and age group.

Clearly, unexposed horses who have not had many runs can improve at anytime but if we concentrate on handicap races where all or most of the horses have had a few runs already, then we will often have enough information and ratings.

Let's look at an example race card

You can see on the image below that the class par for this race is 74.

The image can be clicked to enlarge if needed.

If we use the Master rating as our guide, which is the best rating a horse has achieved in the last 12 months. We can fairly eliminate any horse that hasn't rated at 74 or better.

With the race card above sorted by the Master rating. You can see that there are three horses at the bottom who have a Master rating below 74. 

Whilst Banana lost at 66/1, Deep spirit was unplaced at 12/1 and Churchill boy was an unplaced 7/4 favourite.

Despite Churchill Boy coming second in its last two runs, both over course and distance, the ratings showed it really needed to improve on what it had already achieved. It was probably not worthy of being the 7/4 favourite.

On the same day as the Churchill Boy race, there were 13 runners in handicaps that had a Master rating below the class par for the race. All of them lost, including another short priced runner who was unplaced at 2/1.

This should make you think about using the speed rating class pars in future. To eliminate runners, especially those at shorter prices.

Take a look at the video below.

This video goes through another days racing. It shows how just 1 horse from 47 won when having a Master rating lower than the class par. From the 47 horses there were 37 that were unplaced.

Betting against these runners

As you have seen on the video, you can dutch bet the horses that do have a Master rating equal or better than the class par.

On the image below, you can see I have risked £20 but won £8.27 by backing the qualifiers, or I suppose you could say by laying those without a positive class par figure.

The profits will depend on the prices of those you are betting against but when you have a shorter priced runner like Churchill Boy, you can make a decent amount.

Then multiply this by the number of winning races and it can be a simple way to win using the speed rating class pars.

Should you be backing or laying these blindly?

The short answer is no. Not every race type or every race is going to make you a profit but this method will help narrow things down.

I feel that low grade jump races and races with perhaps more than 12 runners should be considered carefully.

As with betting in any shape or form, the less runners there are, the more chance you have of finding the winner.

If you can get a return of 40% or better on each bet and find a lot of races you can win in, then this will be a great strategy to look into.

However, if you are betting £20 and are winning only £2 or £3 when successful, you will need a lot of winning races to cover a loser. This will all depend on the odds of the horses that you are selecting.

With so many races in the UK each day, week, month and year, you do not need to feel forced into betting when the returns are not likely to be that positive.

Summary

Hopefully this will make you think about using the speed rating class pars yourself.

The speed ratings are uniquely calculated and will highlight winners and as you have seen here, losers too.

You don't need to look at form figures to see the chance of a horse. As we have seen here with Churchill Boy and his two recent seconds over course and distance.

A 2nd place may look good on paper but what is it's real value?

Well the speed ratings will help you see the real picture and show the real chance of each runner.

The ratings are shown in a simple to understand number. Which can be easily compared with the other runners rating numbers. As well as the horses own past ratings allowing you to see the real chance that each horse has.

Read more about the speed ratings here >>