Things have been heating up in National Hunt racing. The newest horses have been putting out some impressive speeds, and they have shaken up the betting world. People have been putting their money on these horses and the races between them have been pretty close. It’s nice to see that more than one horse can be dominant in the sport, but it does make betting a little harder when any of the dominant horses can take the race. I had to alter my way of betting to a more analytical approach.
Before now, betting was more of a gut feeling for me. I would have a feeling about a horse and would bet on it to win. The feeling wasn’t really based on anything, just what I thought looked like a winner. This is how many people bet, and more often than not, it doesn’t pay off for them. This is because it’s a mostly random way of making bets, unless someone bets on the same horse every time without reason, in which case it’s mostly a biased way of betting. A person might win a race or two this way, but unless there’s some good luck at play, they won’t win for the most part.
Using the more analytical approach to betting, I looked at win and loss records, along with the conditions of the horses and their strengths and weaknesses. It reminded me of the same way people looked at sports athletes to determine how likely they were to score. I like this approach to betting more than the gut feeling way because it gives me more control over how I make my bets. Everything isn’t just left to random chance and I can see what goes into making a good race horse and a good bet that will win.