Horse racing form is more than numbers — a trainer, a jockey and an owner are all telling you something, if you know where to look. Writing in Practical Punting in December 2003, US expert Barry Meadow and PPM editor Brian Blackwell carried on their conversation about the fundamentals of handicapping, and this time it is about the connections: is the trainer so important? This is Part 2 of six.
FREE e-book: The Fundamentals of Handicapping – Part 2
Barry Meadow and Brian Blackwell on what the trainer, the jockey and the owner are telling you, and how to weigh the connections.
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What you'll learn:
- Reading the trainer — what a good trainer is telling you when he moves a horse up or down in class, and why Barry follows the twenty per cent trainers, not the five per cent ones
- Signs of form — Barry's four signs that a horse is in form, and why Brian looks twice at “duck egg” winners before ruling them out
- The jockey booking — what a top jockey travelling for a single ride might be telling you, why the leading riders are often overbet, and why backing a jockey's every ride is a trap
- The connections triangle — trainer, jockey and owner, and the hard part: judging how much improvement a horse has left