How to Understand Racing Form Guide

For newbies and beginners in the race betting industry a racing form guide can come as an overwhelming burden of unreadable facts and stats.

The sheer volume of data presented on a racing form guide, which is typically sold at race tracks but can also be found online at a number of sites, is intended to make your life easier and help you understand history of horses and a probability of one winning the race.

These technical documents can come quite handy provided you learn how to understand them.

General Information
Both online and paper-print racing form guides will contain all of the general information regarding the race in the header. Race number, track name and track diagram are some of the information you will find as you get familiar with the race itself before dwelling into details.

Whenever you study a form guide you need to look at it from a relative perspective, compared to the race your horse is running on a particular day.

Analysing a selection that the bookmakers might have overlooked because of what they might think as a poor form could ideally provide great value for a shrewd race form guide reader.

Ground Conditions
Fundamental point of form analysis is the ground conditions as the track can always be of integral importance on the outcome of any race. Every race form guide will present you with key information as to the type of ground with standard descriptions being as follows:

• Heavy
• Soft
• Good to Soft
• Good to Firm
• Firm

Punters will then be able to make their decisions based on the ground in relation to their selection’s performances of different types of surface.

Horse Information
The central part of any race form guide is horse information. From horse and owners’ name to colour of the silks and the name of the jockey, here you will find all the details regarding a selection you need.

An important aspect to consider when it comes to horse-related information definitely is how much weight a horse is carrying. The weights are basis of the entire UK handicapping system and are a significant denominator in any race.

Winners will usually see their weight mark increased and handicap mark pushed up after a competitive offering on the previous racing day, which makes it much more difficult for your selection to win again. On the other side, a string of poor runs can see the handicap drop quickly, which now increases your horse’s chances of getting in the running back again.

Performance History
In relation to the weights and handicapping, a horse’s performance history can also play an important role and needs to be looked at carefully at a racing form guide.

Each of the performance history data begin with a date, race identification, followed by detailed and extensive information. You will be able to pick up on the track-related details and race numbers for that particular date which is followed by fractional times the distance measured in furlongs.

In order to beat the odds and bookmakers using a race form guide you are advised to study all of the aspects above to try and find the value hidden inside the multitude of data and statistical information provided to you.