Form Reading for Dummies

Could you put it another way, in English, perhaps?

Horse racing can look impenetrable to the newcomer at first glance.

"Horse racing can look impenetrable to the newcomer at first glance"

The above is the 1.50 at Salisbury, the race which marks the start of the Punters’ Paradise Forum Tipping Competition.

What on earth does it all mean?

Well, the race is due to start at 1.50pm, that’s not too hard. Axminster Carpets sponsor it (like, who cares?) and it’s the type of race is an Apprentice Riders’ (they are inexperienced, don’t worry about the criteria to define this for now) Handicap, meaning each horse has been given a weight based on its best form within living memory.

The race is for three-year-olds and upwards, rated 0-70 (the weights carried come off a centralised handicap which is numerical) and the race is over seven furlongs and it’s broadcast on RUK (SKY 432).

Number 1 Seven No Trumps has drawn stall four and the form-figures 0724 mean he was fourth on his most recent run, second the run prior to that and so on.

It is six days since his last race and D means he has won over seven furlongs in the past. C would mean he’s won at this racecourse ( Salisbury) in the past and CD would mean he’s won at this course, over this distance. BF would mean he was the beaten favourite last time he ran.

He is trained by JM Bradley (Milton Bradley) and is an eight-year-old carrying 9 stone 4lbs.

His jockey is Greg Fairley who, according to the rules of the race, claims five pounds (meaning the horse will actually carry 8 stone 13 pounds. The RPR is the racing Post’s rating of the horse on his best form and the higher the better.

Down the bottom you’ll notice two horses in the long handicap. Listed are the weights they ought to be carrying but they have to carry more, as there is a minmum weight range for the race.

This is a disadvantage.Then you have the betting forecast – a guesstimate by the Racing Post of the probable starting price of each horse, and a potted summary by a chap with the sign-off of PSm (his name is Paul Smith and, over time, you can learn which of these writers are good judges and which are not).

My view, for what’s it’s worth, is that Paul Smith is ok.

"Of course, you don't know how good the races the horse was running in relative to today's nor the going, nor the distance of them"

These are the basics.

So now you know where the horse has been finishing in recent runs, you have a way of getting a bit of a profile of the horse’s CV relative to today’ race and you even have a rating.

Of course, you don’t know how good the races the horse was running in relative to today’s nor the going, nor the distance of them, but let’s leave that for another day.

When I first started going racing at Beverley in 1977, I started out backing horses with nice form-figures on the premise that 111111 was the best possible form and 000000 (all unplaced) the worst.It was overtly simplistic but it was a start.

I recommend newcomers to register at www.racingpost.co.uk to access the cards like the one above, click on the horses and start to get to grips with the form.

There are also a number of interesting things like time ratings (Topspeed) and Post Data which are worth looking at.