Horse Watching

There are some professional gamblers who make a very good living betting on horses watching the horses live before they start the race. This includes watching them in the parade ring and also how they move down to the starting post. Why do they do this? Well really they do this for numerous reasons but the main one is to do with them assessing the physical and also the mental state of the horse. Now before we go any further it has to be said that to do this well takes great skill and loads of experience.

Knowing that a horse is mentally disturbed or isn’t quite up to par in terms of fitness can lead the shrewd operators into a position where they can exploit this to their best advantage in horse racing. Once again we have a clear problem in so much as irrespective how good the trainer is, he cannot properly communicate with the horse in the same way that he could with another human being.

In athletics then if the athlete felt some little niggling injury then he would mention this to his trainer. But in horse racing the trainer and stable staff are left to their own devices to try and assess how the horse is feeling. But even though the horse may be fit and well both physically and mentally prior to setting out for the meeting, travelling inside the horse box for perhaps several hundred miles could and does have some effect in some cases.

So for a horse to have a good run then it needs to be at its best both physically and mentally and this is where these professional gamblers come in because they try and assess the fitness of the horse in question. This usually involves the favourites or horse very high up in the betting. The fact of the matter is that in most races, the quality difference between the favourite and the rest of the field or several other contenders is so close that anything that affects the form of the favourite even if only slightly is hugely significant.

If you had a horse that was 4/1 favourite in a very competitive field with several others at 10/1 or less and the 4/1 favourite had some slight problems then this could be a clear indication that opposing the horse could be a good strategy. To see why then we only have to look at what 4/1 actually means. What 4/1 means is that this horse is expected to win one race in five so in other words…..20% of the time. Now if a mental or physical condition led to the horses chances of winning the race being reduced by a mere 10% then suddenly the horse only has a 10% chance of winning.

When equated to odds then 10% is 9/1 so if you think that 9/1 is a better indication of this horses chances of winning this race then the horse at 4/1 then becomes a clear lay and value can be found in laying it.