Some days, there seems to be as many horse racing wagering systems as there are bettors. How can anyone make any money playing the ponies? By doing the same things that thoroughbred and Standardbred track handicappers do when they determine morning line odds. They do a lot of tedious number crunching and look for any promising patterns to emerge in their horse reports.

Horsemen and horse players are both superstitious. This makes them wary of change, such as using software to help make their betting decisions. In reality, there is nothing to be wary about.

40 Shades of Factors

It used to be that betting on horse racing was a full time job. Did you know that there are at least 40 considerations to take into account for each individual horse before deciding to make a bet? This is a lot of information to juggle. You can sift through this information quickly by using handicapping analytics software.

Factors to consider include not only the horse’s past performances in all types of weather, but the past performances of its trainer and jockey or driver. Since tracks vary, you also need to pay attention to how the horse, trainer and jockey perform at each track. You also need to check if the horse is stepping up or going down in class from its last few races. Is the horse coming back from a layoff? Is the horse’s equipment being changed?

What’s Old is New Again

Long-time horse players remember the old way of making bets. All horses at a track were studied and written about in a notebook. After dutiful study, some highlights would stick out. As you can imagine, sifting through all of this information took a very long time, making the player make very few wagers at high amounts in order to break even, let alone make a profit.

Handicapping software simply processes a large amount of data in a short amount of time. The software taps into the data from Equibase. Equibase is the main database of race results and statistics in North America. There are separate data bases for thoroughbred races and harness races. You can try to sort through Equibase by yourself or have software do it for you. It’s a safe bet that handicapping software is a vital tool for modern horse players.