Are you looking forward to a day at the races and wishing you could come home with more money than you have when you get there? Do you have any idea how to go about choosing horses wisely, or do you just pick the ones with names that appeal to you? There are ways to use the experts’ knowledge to help you pick horses that are more likely to win. It’s called handicapping, and it can give you an edge in choosing the ponies which might actually put some money back into your pocket.

Handicapping horse racing is part art, part science. It involves using prior knowledge about the horses in a race, their past performance, the track conditions, the jockeys, and countless other factors which may affect how a particular horse will perform in a particular race. Fortunately for you, there are plenty of options out there to help you handicap a race. From reading racing forms to using online handicapping software, horse racing enthusiasts have plenty of ways to make a day at the races potentially profitable.

Handicapping software horse racing sites are plentiful online. When you take a look at all of the factors these sites evaluate, it seems like a good idea to let them do the work for you. A typical online handicapper will factor in such things as the weight the horse is carrying as compared to the weight it has carried in past races, the lengths by which a horse has won or lost a race, the number of days since the horse was last raced, which horses it’s competing against in today’s race, how well the horse runs in specific track conditions, and many other details too complex for the average race track visitor to understand. You can purchase past performance records (anywhere from a single card to an unlimited number of cards per year), or you can download daily racing forms for the track and races you would like to see.

Daily racing forms will give you news, race results, “how-to’s”, race reports, and more. You can use these sites to purchase PP’s (Past Performances) which will help you understand the horses you are looking at in any race. Today’s Racing Digest, which is an online publication, gives you inside information on dozens of factors which might influence the chances of a horse winning on any given day.

With so much information out there to help you decide which horses are potentially good ones on which to place your bets, why not use the experts’ advice and place your money on the ponies with the best chances of winning?