Making the Best out of Free Resources Part Four

Trainer Form

The vast majority of horse racing trainers in the UK are creatures of habit. Year in and year out trainers follow a similar pattern of routine and come into form during the same month or run up to a particular festival etc,  although occasionally a spanner can hit the works with a virus hitting a stable and effectively shutting the stable down for several months. The press are usually up to speed with any issues affecting trainers like this so it pays to keep an eye on the relevant sites for up to date trainer news.

One major factor that will have an affect currently is the horrendous weather that most parts of the UK have suffered in the run up to Christmas and continuing into the first 3 weeks of 2010. Not only were lots of meetings abandoned but many trainers were reported as saying that their horses had missed some valuable work time due to the gallops being unusable. There are a number of FREE RESOURCES that can help in this unusual situation in addition to being a bread and butter method of making those extra vital checks in your form study, particularly when it has highlighted a selection worthy of investing your hard earned cash on it.

Let’s start with the Racing Post, which has been available on-line for a fair while now, but then more recently introduced a Members Area which has various levels of monthly subscription to access such items as the Tipping Service, form ratings, databases etc. The good news for us is the valuable resource for checking the Trainer Form is still in the free area of the site, although you do have to log in to use it. When you “click on” and open up any race from the drop down menu you will see the race details and various useful snippets of information about the horse, such as its latest form figures, and how many days since it last ran. Next to its age and weight it will be show the trainer’s name which is followed by a number. This number represents the percentage of the stables runners that have run to form in the last 14 days based on the Racing Posts form ratings.

Quite simply the higher the number the more likely the indication is that the trainer’s runners are performing well and therefore this could be a positive factor to your original selection. If you click on the trainers name a pop-up will reveal the details of the runners from that stable during the last 14 days. A simple but effective check is to see if there are good supplies of not only winners but placed horses. This will vary a little as the bigger stables will have had more runners, but as a general rule of thumb and guide it works well.

The second resource we can use to highlight a trainer in form is found on the Sporting Life site. From the Blue menu on the left hand side of the front page, select the Racing Section, then “Today’s Pointers” which is half way down the racing menu again on the left hand side. The second highlighted box is titled “Hot Trainers”, click on “Show More” and a pop-up will reveal a list of trainers that have had more than 2 winners in the last 7 days. It will detail how many runners and the percentage placed during the same period. If you click on the trainers name you can find details of the last 14 days and current season statistics, including whether a profit would have been made by blindly backing all of the runners.

A combination of the two Trainer Form methods can give vital pointers as to the well being and likely performances of the stables runners. They can either be used as a checkpoint on a horse you are thinking of backing or a start point by compiling a daily list of runners from trainers in form before taking a closer look at the individual horses form and likely chances of winning. Whichever route is taken you can at least be assured that one more piece of the horse racing  jigsaw is well and truly covered.

Read the previous parts here http://www.laytheodds.com/2010/01/04/making-the-best-out-of-free-resources-part-three