What do a bookmaker's details about race participants mean?
If you know how to read the race card shown by bookmaking sites or in newspapers, you can find a whole host of information about each of the runners in any horse race. However, understanding what this information means, especially if you are unfamiliar with the sport, can take a little while. In this post, we will explore the different data shown on a typical betting site for any horse race.
Essentially, there are three different types of data available on a typical online race card for a typical horse race.
- Information about the meeting and the race.
- Information about the runners in the race.
- Information about the betting odds and markets available on the race.
Let’s break these down into more detail about the different types of information available in each category.
Information about the Meeting and Race
The information you can find out about the particular meeting and each of the individual races includes the following:
- Where the race meeting is taking place.
- Will the meeting be contested on the flat or over jumps?
- The number of races scheduled to take place at the meeting.
- What the going is like at the course presently (on all-weather tracks the going will be Fast, Standard or Slow).
This final aspect is of particular note to betting enthusiasts. The going refers to how soft or hard the conditions are on the racetrack. The wetter and more yielding a ground is, the softer it is and slower the going. The drier and harder the ground is, the harder and faster the going tends to be.
This is important as some horses prefer running on specific ground. So much so that if the going isn’t to a horse's liking in a particular race, their trainer may elect not to race them (so they would be a non-runner).
Going is described as the following, moving from the most moisture in the ground to the least.
- Heavy
- Soft
- Good to Soft
- Good
- Good to Firm
- Firm
If you have clicked on a race, you will also see more details at the very top of the race card. This will include:
- Scheduled race start time.
- How long it is to post
- The distance of the race
- Whether it is a handicap race or not
- Whether the race is over jumps or a flat race.
- The class of the race (Classes 1 to 7 in Flat Racing and 1 to 6 in Jumps Racing).
The class of a race refers to its prestigiousness. Class 1 races are the top races, whereas Class 7 or 6 races are the lowest-quality races.
Information about the Runners in the Race.
If you click on a time for a particular race at a meeting, this will bring up the detailed race card for that race. This is where you can find out the most information about each of the runners in the race.
While not universally the case, most race cards at online bookmakers follow a similar system of labelling their runners and riders in the race. In our example below, we used a racecard taken from bet365 Sport as an example.
From left to right, here is what you can find out:
- Jockey Silk Colours - Usually listed on the left-hand side of the screen are the colours that the jockey will wear for their silks in the race.
- Runner’s Number & Name - The number for the horse in the race is shown just in front of its name. This is usually listed in bold for easy reference.
- Draw -Underneath the Runner’s Number and name may be a number in brackets. When stalls are used for a race, the stall a horse is drawn in is denoted in the bracket. On some tracks, there can be an advantage to being drawn in the lower, middle ranked, or higher-ranked numbers in the stalls.
- Jockey - The jockey's name is shown next to the runner’s draw.
- Claimed Pounds - Some jockeys may have a number in brackets after their name. This is the weight allowance (in pounds) they are claiming for this race.
- Trainer - The name of the trainer is shown after that of the jockey.
- Weight - This is the weight that the horse will carry including the weight of the jockey and is based on a handicapping system. The higher the weight a horse carries, the more it has been handicapped to try and ensure a fair race.
- Age - The age of the horse.
- Form - Often shown in the format of numbers and letters and dashes (for example, 341-05). This shows the finishing position of the horse for the last five or six races. The numbers 1-9 denote the horse finished in first to ninth place. 0 denotes the horse finished outside the top nine. A dash denotes the end of one year’s racing season and the start of another, so in the example above, the horse finished third, fourth and first in the last three races of last season, but so far this season has finished outside the top ten and fifth in its last two races). In jump racing, letters can be used alongside numbers to indicate whether a horse fell (F), unseated its rider (U), pulled up (P or PU), was brought down by another horse (BD) or refused to jump a fence (R). Sometimes you can click on the form to give a more detailed appraisal of how a horse performed in a race. At bet365, you can view recordings of those races if you so choose.
Betting Market and Odds Information
The final column on the standard race card shows the odds for that selection. You can usually sort the card by horse number or the odds.
Any changes in odds may also be shown near the start of the race. This shows you selections either drifting out (lengthening) in the market or being backed and coming in (shortening).
However, you can also find additional betting market information using the tabs at the top of the race card. Other options here include Each Way Extra, Forecast/Tricast betting and other betting options available for the races of your choice.
As you can see, a race card contains a tremendous amount of information. It can be a valuable asset for a punter when assessing all the runners' chances in a particular race!
More about Horse racing betting :
- What horse racing bets can be made?
- How do you calculate racing bets?
- How to win at horse racing
- How to work out horse racing bets
- What Horse Racing Promotions are there at Online Bookmakers?
- What is Each-way Betting in Horse Racing?
- Why is the Cheltenham Festival So Important?
- What Are Forecast And Tricast Bets in Horse Racing?
- How Does A Best Odds Guarantee Work When Betting On Horse Racing?
- When are the most popular horse racing events in the calendar year?
- What are the most popular horse races for fans and bettors each year?
- What is a Stewards' Inquiry in horse racing, and can it affect the race outcome?
- What sign language do bookmakers use at racecourses to communicate odds?
- What is Virtual Horseracing and how does it work?
- What is an each-way treble?
