Whatever your interest, you could become an authority in a specialist sphere and make yourself some cash

‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ has never been a phrase to compliment anyone, no matter what their profession. If ever there was a saying to sum up the remote long-term chances of making a profit, let alone a living, gambling on horses, the ‘Jack of all trades…’ is definitely it.

With more and more racing these days, keeping up to date with all the form and information available is almost a physical impossibility. Being a successful gambler – or, preferably, taking the gambling out of betting – has always been about superior knowledge. Assuming most of us don’t vhae the ear of a trainer or jockey, we’re responsible for gaining that edge. Given the information overload we face these days, the answer is to specialise.

At least from the on-course perspective, most successful punters concentrate on just one code of racing, although there are one or two notable exceptions. While the vast amount of racing data to analyse is daunting, it’s also a help to those who wish to become an expert in a small area and still have regular betting opportunities. Rather than just concentrate on jumps or flat, you can add all-weather racing as a separate code now because concentrating on a specific area in this field could also prove very rewarding to anyone willing to put in the time.

While the bookmakers employ ‘experts’ to price up races, increasingly often they allow the tail to wag the dog and take into account the prices on the exchanges before sticking their necks out. Those faceless people in internet land may well be people with inside info on certain horses, but they’re more likely to be out-and-out gamblers who price up every race with little more to go on than the probable starting prices given in the Racing Post, which are in turn priced up by a handful of people with a lot of work and little time. This is the daily situation a specialist can utilise to great effect. Whatever your interest, you could soon become an authority in a specialist sphere and make yourself some cash.

Stay in focus

So where should you concentrate? The obvious answer is flat, jumps or all-weather racing, but that still leaves too much information to sift through. One idea for the patient and long-term form student would be to follow a generation of flat horses, keeping tabs on, say, all two-year-olds through the first season, spotting potential and patterns. For example, concentrating on just two-year-olds that run at Grade 1 tracks would keep down the workload. The following year, as three-year-olds, the horses you study could be whittled down further, with an in-depth knowledge of a smaller group of horses emerging.

For many, the drawback to this idea would be that backing two-year-olds is a risky business, especially with unknown quantities such as un-raced newcomers and horses who have come on dramatically for their first runs. However, if you’re happy to study and not bet, the knowledge gained would prove a formidable foundation for serious punting action on these horses in the next season.

Keeping with the flat, why not limit your study to horses just running over five furlongs instead of concentrating on all sprinters? The minimum rip takes out the guesswork, whereas horses may be stepping up in trip in six- and seven-furlong races. The more you think about it, the more you can specialise. Becoming an expert on the draw bias of tracks over a certain distance would be a useful bit of specialist knowledge. Of course, a lot of that information is available in the Racing Post, but remember that a lot of the people offering odds on the exchanges are just gamblers. If one of your betting strategies was based on backing or laying horses where the draw was a massive influence, you could often obtain early value.

It’s stating the obvious to say that times are very important in the evaluation of form. However, doing your own research on times often throws up future winners who have been underestimated by the handicapper simply because of the low grade of the race, even though the winning time suggested the horse in question was easily capable of a much larger step up than it had been given credit for. Keeping records of times and making your own going assumptions rather than accepting blindly the official figures could often yield rewards. Specialising in a handful of courses and knowing them inside out in various going conditions could be well worth considering, possibly as an extra strand to complement other studied areas.

True to form

Following ‘trend horses’ is another avenue of specialisation. In-depth study of horses’ form that might make the dubious-looking figures such as 160058000U174400PP1U suddenly turn to 111U when at two miles on a right-handed track is an obvious route to profit. This approach is very time consuming, but there are specialist publications available that pinpoint the animals to follow and their trends, notably Trend Horses (www.trendhorses.co.uk).

For long-term study, National Hunt racing provides many opportunities to become an expert. Apart from hurdlers and chasers, keeping tabs on point-to-point form could be an opportunity to cash in on other punters’ weaknesses. It’s not unknown for horses with some decent point form to slip through the net in form analysis and then to be priced accordingly by early exchange players. UK and Irish point-to-point form is available from the Racing Post Weekender, as well as comments and meeting reviews that often contain valuable information. If you regionalise your study – focusing on horses who run mainly in Scotland, the Midlands and so on – you can note condition, mistakes missed by the press, market moves and the likes. Why not consider focusing on stables, as getting into the mindset of a stable that likes a tilt at the ring could take some doing, but if you crack a pattern you’re almost on the inside.

The choices are almost endless, but even more so when lateral thinking is adopted. It’s easy to be a jack of all trades, but better to be a master of one.