Handicap a horse race and you may have the thrill of seeing your horse win the race as well as making money if you chose to bet on the race. But handicapping a horse race and being successful often enough is no small accomplishment. In fact, some people search for the perfect horse racing system their whole lives. Here are some tips on how to use two of the most important factors in horse racing to find winners.

Let’s set the record straight, there really is no perfect system that works all the time in every race. The truth is, some races just aren’t formful enough to handicap and others have too many horses. The size of the field changes everything when it comes to picking winners and how often you will succeed. I recommend sticking with races of 8 horses or less. Yes the payoffs are often bigger on the winners of races with large fields, but that is because the risk is much higher.

The two most important factors in horse anddatos americanas hoy  racing handicapping, other than trainer intent, are class and speed. Master these two critical indicators and you will be head and shoulders above the crowd. I know, easier said than done, right? Well first of all, you need to have a method of measuring both factors. I like to look at each horse’s last race speed figure but also to average the last three.

As for class, it’s all about the money. The amount earned per race is a good indicator of class, especially the amount earned in the last five races. Some older horses may have earned a lot of money racing in state bred restricted races as two year olds and then fizzled into mediocrity when they hit the open ranks and had to face tougher horses. Their earnings and glory days are long gone and were subsidized by generous breeding programs. That is why the last five rule works well.

So let’s say you have a horse who is two points best in speed rating and another horse who has earned 20% more per race than any other horse. One is the speed horse of the race and the other is the class. How do you make a comparison and figure out which one’s strength will dominate? This being horse racing, it is possible that neither horse will win, but in many cases one of the two will hit the winners circle.

This is when your knowledge of your own track and the races there will come in handy. You should have notes about every such race that has run at your track so you can get an idea of which factor is most important. For instance, $10,000 claiming events for 3 year old fillies, non-winners of 3 races lifetime might usually go to the speed horse in the race. Therefore, you would probably try to get a fair price on the speed and bet it.

But if class is king, as it is in many turf events and races for older horses, then you would lean toward class. There is another method of picking winners that I call the margin method. After you’ve determined class and speed for each horse, compare them and find out how big a margin the top horses have over the competition. The speed horse may have a 78 average and the next best horse has a 77. That is only a 1 point speed advantage. The class horse may have averaged $3,000 per start while the next best horse averaged $2,000. That is a 50% advantage. Obviously, in this case, the class horse has a huge advantage and would be the choice to win.

This is a simplistic look at a complicated subject but should help you to start to understand how to use various horse racing handicapping factors to successfully evaluate each runner.