Horse Racing Betting Guide – Stick to Handicap Races Updated for May 2025

03/05/2016 | Categories: Horse Racing | Published by: Andy Nelson

Updated: 19th May 2025

Whether it is at the races, at the pub on a Saturday afternoon, or once a year on the Grand National, many people enjoy a “flutter” on the horses. Backing a winner makes the experience all the more enjoyable.

Here are a few tips for finding those elusive winners in our Horse Racing betting guide.

Horse Racing Betting Guide – Handicap Betting is The way to Go

Horse Racing Betting Guide

All punters, serious or otherwise, are always looking for value. One place in which it can be found is in handicaps, on the Flat or over Jumps.

In theory, British Horseracing Authority (BHA) handicappers try to give each runner in a handicap an equal chance of winning.

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In practice, they almost always fail.

However more often than not, the betting market in handicaps is more open and easier to exploit, than the betting market in non-handicaps.

The best value-for-money is often to be found in handicaps run over seven furlongs or further.
Especially in which the horses are three years old, or older and all of them have fully exposed form.

In other words, all of the runners have run at least, say, half a dozen times in total and once or twice during the current season.

If you only have the basic form figures, such as those found on the racing page of any national newspaper, to go by, look for horses that finished first, second or third on their last two starts and have a “D”, for distance winner, next to their names.

Only Back Recent Runners

Racehorses, especially those that race exclusively on the Flat, can only be held at peak fitness for a relatively short time.

If you have access to the information, concentrate on those that have run within the last six weeks.

Ignore any horses with longer absences. That way, you can be reasonably sure that the horse you back is at least fit and ready to do itself justice.

It is true that some horses do win after an absence of a year, two years or longer.

However without “inside” information you are always taking a chance if you back a horse that has been off the course for longer than six weeks.

Horse Racing Tipsters

Studying horse racing form is a complex and time-consuming process. This is something you may not want to get involved in.

If that is the case, you will need to rely on racing journalists, pundits and tipsters for your selections.

You can find racing tips in any national newspaper. In specialist racing publications, such as the Racing Post and on numerous websites.

It`s a good idea to note the selections of any tipster for a trial period, perhaps a week or two, to see if they are successful before you start backing them with real money.

Choose a decent horse racing bookmaker that offers good odds, best odds guaranteed and other racing related promotions; suggestions for this would be sites like Betfred and Hollywoodbets.

You can read more of the first mentioned in our Betfred review of the bookmaker.

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