Horse racing handicapping does not reduce to a system — as US expert Barry Meadow puts it, most experienced players understand the game is far too complex for that. Writing in Practical Punting in November 2003, PPM editor Brian Blackwell sat down with Meadow to work through the fundamentals of handicapping: what can actually be measured, what is only ever estimated, and how each of them reads a race. This is Part 1 of six, and you are getting the conversation the way it was written.
FREE e-book: The Fundamentals of Handicapping – Part 1
Barry Meadow and Brian Blackwell on what a handicapper can actually measure, what is only guesswork, and how each of them reads a race.
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What you'll learn:
- Five categories of handicapping — ability, form, connections, potential and race setup, and which Barry Meadow says can be measured and which are “mostly guesswork”
- Read the conditions first — one question before the runners: what is each horse doing in this race? Spotting the prep run, and why even 1200m to 1300m can make a huge difference
- Brian Blackwell's formguide routine — red and green circles, class, the weight turnaround from last start, and narrowing the race to five or six main chances, or skipping it
- Class cuts both ways — why horses are far more likely to win dropped in class than raised, and why a higher-class race presents many more potential rivals