Racing Tips for Newbies

By maguijo

The world of horse racing is exciting and there's a lot of money to be won and lost! When you first venture into horse racing, it can all seem so confusing. It seems like there's a whole different language being spoken and it can be very overwhelming.

My first racing tip for newbies is to relax. Just enjoy the races. Don't worry about trying to accurately predict the winner just yet! Get to know the horses, their trainers and the top jockeys. You'll need some time spent watching races and reading articles about upcoming races in order to get familiar with all of this, so give yourself some time. You can add betting in later once you've gotten more familiar with the whole scene. If you want to bet anyway, just go with your gut instinct and your heart, and don't bet much!

My second racing tip is simply to explain that there can be three betting wins at a race. There's "win," which is obviously the horse that came in first. There's also "place" which is the horse that came in second, and "draw," which is the horse that came in third. You can bet for a horse to win, place or draw, and if he ends up in the top three, you're a winner!

My next racing tips all have to do with evaluating the horse and the race together based on past performances. As you get to know the horses that compete regularly, and read about professional handicapper picks (a handicapper is someone who studies past performances of horses and makes educated guesses as to who will win), you'll begin to understand that there are several factors which produce winners at each particular race.

The horse himself, his jockey, the track surface and condition, the post position and the race length all contribute to whether a horse is likely to win or not. If you understand that a particular horse always does well in 1-mile races and less, then you wouldn't pick him to win at the Hollywood Gold Cup, which is a 1-1/4 mile race. Make sense?

If a particular jockey always seems to win, and he suddenly switches horses to another horse, the new horse might suddenly have a better chance of winning.

If a race at Churchill Downs gets rained on and the track is solid mud, a horse that you thought would win it might suddenly finish very poorly because he only runs well on a dry track. Other horses seem to relish the muddy conditions and race better.

Pay attention to post positions as well. The position closest to the inside of the track, post position one, is not a good position. Although most horses like to run along the rail as that's the shortest distance, they can also get boxed in there by slower horses and not be able to move out and around the pack in order to take the lead.

On the other hand, the outside position can also be bad because the horse automatically has to come in toward the rail and make up some lost ground. In a race with fewer contenders, that won't be such a problem.

Good luck with your venture into horse racing and remember. It's supposed to be fun!