Why Do So Many People Lose So Much At Horse Racing?

The majority of punters lose money. You are probably one of them? In days gone by your losses invariably found their way into the pockets of the bookies, more recently a fair proportion will have been trousered by smart punters who use the betting exchanges to take you on. Today, even with an even chance against fellow punters, you and the other 98% still lose.

Why is this then? There is an enormous amount of very useful data available to you, and with the arrival of the personal computer you can freely download and process that data to help you with your selections. Yet you still lose.

I believe that it's the system you use (if you use a system at all). A first class system makes all the difference. Once you come up with a system that really works (and works for you - which is even more important), you will be well on your way to enduring success.

It is commonly thought that only the proficient and the professionals can craft, progress and finally achieve a winning horse racing system, this is not entirely true. Almost anybody can design a wining horse racing strategy. Including those who know very little about horse racing betting systems.

Could you be one? Well, it does take a calm, commonsense approach, and if you are not cool and logical, and are prone to bet on such unscientific parameters as a horse's name or the jockey's colours, then you are going to have to change your habits or continue to fail.

There is a huge amount of form surrounding each horse, and all of that data is readily available to you in order to make your selection. There is also a huge amount of statistical data, and the best winning horse racing systems tend to use some sort of combination of the two. The last and sometimes the most important facet of any racing system is intuition, and this you can only develop with experience. You can't bottle it and sell it, and it's very hard to teach or transfer. It's all about experience.

Form (data) relates not solely to the horse you are researching, (whether it's improving or fading, whether it likes the conditions, whether it likes running after a long trip etc) but particularly to the form of the other horses in the field. It's no good just selecting a horse which is coming into form and ignoring the fact that several other runners are also coming into form too (which is highly likely).

Then there are stats relating to other factors like the weather (is it going to rain, does he thrive in heavy going), track (has he won here before, and if so -how recently?), quality and reputation of its jockey, the draw (is the horse drawn near the end of the line or in the centre, and if so is it the better side or will he be at a disadvantage).

Also take into account the form of the trainer - are his other horses doing well too? Is he in the top 20 or (better) top 10 trainers listings?

Another piece of information which is always wise to understand is how far the horse has travelled to take part in the race. A trainer is not going to subject his horse to a very long journey in a dark and heavy horsebox just to get some on-course training. No, if he is taking his horse a long distance (say 200miles in the UK), then he probably believes his horse has an excellent chance of winning (and his information must be better than yours).

Other important data includes the horse's age, sex, how long since it last raced, its best distance compared to the distance it will be running this time), and so on. The difficulty is in deciding which data to give weight to, and how much importance to give to it in relation to the other information you are using for your new horse-racing system.

I design winning horse racing betting systems, I also review and test other people's systems too. I can tell you with certainty that some of the very best and most profitable racing systems currently available were developed by interested or gifted amateurs (well I suppose we're all amateurs really, you can't go to college to learn this stuff).

To me, system-creation is an evolutionary process. I rarely start with a clean sheet (even when I try to). Invariably I use characteristics of other systems when I start out - however hard I try to avoid it. It is sheer madness to ignore what works well just so that I can claim that my new creation is totally new. In any case, users are not interested in totally new, they are only interested in totally profitable!

Final comment: - If I gave a winning system to three testers and asked them to use the system for a month, exactly as I had designed it, they would return with substantially different winnings! Odd eh? It seems that however much we try, even with the most mechanical system, human interaction with the system leads to varying performance. But that phenomenon is for another article

One conclusion I almost always come to after horse-racing system tests, (and I have carried out several), is that the largest difference between a winning racing system and a losing one is the individual who is using it!

If you would like to hear about my newest systems, or see my reviews and comments on other horse racing systems, do please visit my sites. They also contain a large amount of useful and interesting horse racing articles, information and betting system resources.

By: Christopher Temple

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Chris Temple has a successful forex career. He writes books about Forex, winning horse racing systems and on choosing the best winning horse racing betting systems
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