Reddit reviews Picking Winners: A Horseplayer's Guide

to add on to this he mentions a book called Picking Winners by Andrew Beyer, a horse racing handicapper. The book is a really in-depth look at his whole methodology for evaluating horse races and you definitely don't need to read the whole thing if that stuff doesn't interest you but as Joe Peta says in his recommendation - there is a chapter in the book on Money Management that is FANTASTIC and borderline essential for anyone trading risk

My initial thoughts are the past performance aspect needs to be much more detailed and the layoff line can probably be eliminated. Some trainers are just so good off the layoff (Chad Brown for example) even a 180 day layoff might not mean a lot. I would also be interested in how you come up with speed. Is is just the time of the race or a figure?

​

Past performances: You need to figure out a way to grade those performances into better numbers. Essentially you need to figure out how to create your own speed figure. It might be worth checking out a book on that as its way more than one post could answer. This is really the hard part to figure out. However to get started you need to address:

​

How do you compare a class? Whats the relative difference between 1st in a G3 and 2nd in a G1?

There should be some variable for the surface.

How fast did they actually run? This is the hardest one. Especially considering biases might not become apparent until after the race .

​

To eliminate a ton of variables might I suggest maybe sticking to one race type? Whatever your favorite track is pick a distance and surface they will run every day you're watching (easy one is usually 6f on the dirt) and try give each horse a rating. Then compare those ratings to other figures and see where you disagree. Or at a minimum stick to one track. Trying to build a system that handicaps Charles Town and Belmont both very well is going to be incredibly hard.

​

In my case I like turf routes, especially on less than firm turf. I think Beyer speed figures are not very reliable in those races and cause some goofy odds (as they are the most used tool in US racing). In these route races you can often find European horses that look a cut below but will relish the softer going and outrun their odds.

​

I know hes often clowned in horse racing circles I think you might benefit from reading Andy Beyers Picking Winners: A Horseplayer's Guide. He goes into details on how he came up with this figures. All you got to do is figure out where he went wrong.