“What Our Transatlantic Cousins Can Teach Us About Picking Winners. And Losers!”

Introduction

Horse racing as a sport has thrived in this country for over 900 years. It is said that the Crusaders returned from their battles with lightning swift Arab horses as early as the 12^th Century. Known as the Sport of Kings, it was the likes of Lord Derby (after whom the principle race in the UK flat calendar is named) and his moneyed cohorts who exclusively enjoyed the thrills of ownership for most of the intervening years.

Indeed, the colours of Lord Derby are still carried with honour, most recently by the incomparable race mare, Ouija Board.

Across ‘The Pond’, in America, it was also the British settlers who instigated horse racing as a sport. The first recorded US track was built at Long Island, on the East Coast, in 1665.

Both sides of the big watery divide, the single common element that increased the popularity of horse racing was that the outcome could not be predicted with any certainty.

And of course the consequence of an uncertain outcome is, and always has been, a wager.

Gambling continues to pay the way for horse racing everywhere, though for how much longer so much poor sport can sustain itself (especially here in UK) is in some doubt, in the mind of this scribe at least.

The point of this rather ragged and incomplete history lesson, lest you wonder, is to emphasise the fundamental role of betting in the sport.

Betting makes for winners and losers, and – in the case of horse racing – the result is binary. You either have a ‘1’, and a win and a payout. Or you have a ‘0’, and not a win, and a loss.

This risk / reward scenario has been embraced since time immemorial as an opportunity to make money.

Historically, when communications such as we have in this digital age were less plausible than putting a man into space, foul play abounded, and scams were commonplace.

It was a brave (or foolhardy) man who struck, or accepted, a wager. Of course, this ‘glorious uncertainty’ deterred neither the aristocracy nor the peasant classes from wading in with their size nine buskins.

In more recent times, with the formation of various governing bodies, from local to international levels, and the appointment of senior on-course judiciary, the scope for skulduggery has reduced manifold (despite what the conspiracy theorists and terminal losers will try to peddle to you if they think you offer even half an ear in their direction).

This makes the practice of trying to find winners more scientific and less susceptible to the unknown and underhand machinations of a preconceived plot.

With the possibility that science or at least artistic study could identify the most likely winner of a race among thoroughbreds, came the students to whose dedication to methodical analysis we owe everything we know today about what is commonly called ‘form’.

The interesting aspect, and the key theme of this mini-series, is the disparate evolution of horse racing form analysis that has developed on the two respective sides of the Atlantic.

The concept of collateral form – that is, A beat B by 5 lengths, and B beat C by 3 lengths; therefore, A should beat C by 8 lengths – is almost utterly alien Stateside. And yet it is the staple here in Britain and Ireland.

By the same token, the notions of pace, class and speed – which underpin US form study – are still the poor relations of collateral form in our verdant lands.

In the course of some of the following posts, I hope to introduce you to some of the key principles of US race analysis, and illustrate how prudent employment of these ideas can lead to real value in one’s betting here in Blighty.

Furthermore, if a methodology can identify the horse best suited to the prevailing conditions, or the fastest horse and, therefore, one to bet, it follows that the same methodologies can identify slow horses, or horses patently unsuited by the race makeup and, consequently, those to oppose.

In this day and age, this affords both bettor and bookmaker opportunities, and it is in both of these spheres that we should seek to take advantage of our window of opportunity.

And but a window it is. For, as with all systems and methods, its effectiveness will be finite and timebound. What works today because it is the premise of a minority of anti-establishment thinkers will tomorrow be the accepted wisdom of everyman.

Although it is sometimes difficult to take the less well-trodden route, it is unequivocally there that the path to financial gain lies.

Tomorrow, we'll look at the history and evolution of UK form, and briefly consider its strengths and weaknesses as a means of identifying horses to invest in.

Matt