subject: Horse Racing Handicapping Information Sources [print this page] Horse Racing Handicapping Information Sources
In order to handicap a horse race, you need good information. Horse racing handicapping information can come from a variety of sources and the quality may range from outright terrible to very good. Information, however, is only as good as the application of that information. Therefore, each person who sets out to make money betting on the horse races may find and use that data in different ways and get much different results.
It is a good idea to set some goals for yourself before you go seeking information to handicap the races. For instance, you may say that your goal is to make a 20% profit from win bets on several local tracks. The next step is to decide which steps you will take to reach that goal. You will obviously need to make decisions about which horses to wager on. How will you reach that decision?
You will need information, but not just any information. You need the info that gives you the statistics or factors that you have the ability to compare in order to come to conclusions about the chances of each horse winning. Based on each horse's chance of winning, you will then decide what a fair price is for a wager. If a horse has a 50% chance of winning a race, then you must get better than even odds to make a profit.
How do you know if a horse has a 50% chance of winning? Experience is the greatest teacher. You may keep records and know that the horses who have an early speed edge who drop in class at a certain distance and class level have a statistical edge. So your information source will have to provide good pace figures that you can read and understand in order to determine which horses in a race will have a pace edge.
I advise you to look at all handicapping services and to see which one(s) provide information that you can use to structure bets that you know will pay off. Key horses are handy for exotic bets and if you like playing trifectas or exactas or multi-race bets, then perhaps a service or source of information that identifies key horses will work for you. You don't always need to go through the process of determining which horse has a speed or class edge by crunching the numbers yourself, there are services that provide that information in a form that many people can understand quickly incorporate into their own handicapping.
