Horse Racing Form Cards

The best way to predict the winner of a race is to use previous form as your guide. Form cards available at all courses, and they are also published (although often in abbreviated form) in the sports pages of daily newspapers. The form for each runner is usually presented as a string of alpha-numeric information and is used in horse racing betting.

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Here is an example of the form used in horse racing betting:

1 123 Nottadonkey 21 CD J Crawford 8 11-12 M Monroe

Reading left to right, you will see the following:

Horse number. In this case, the horse is number one on the card in this example for horse racing betting.
Recent form, stated as a finishing position. The result of the most recent race appears on the right, so this horse came third in its last race, second in the race before that, and 1st in the race before that.
Name of horse. Ours is called Nottadonkey.
Days since last run. In this example the horse last ran a race 21 days ago.
Course win. If a horse has previously won over the same course, this will be indicated by the letter C.
Distance win. If a horse has previously won over the same distance, this will be indicated by the letter D.
Name of trainer. Our example is trained by one J Crawford.
Age of horse. Nottadonkey is 8 years old.
Weight. Our horse will carry 11 stone 12 pounds.
Name of jockey. Nottadonkey will be ridden by M Monroe.

Applying the Form Card to bets

Each Way Bets	Runners	Results
	2-4	No place betting ususally allowed
	5-7	1st and 2nd one quarter the odds
	More than 8	1st, 2nd and 3rd one fifth the odds
	Handicaps 12 - 15	1st, 2nd and 3rd one quarter odds
	Handicaps more than 16	1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th one quarter odds
Patent	Is three selections combined for seven bets( one treble, three doubles and three singles)
Yankee	Made up of four selections combined into eleven bets (four trebles, six doubles and a four-horse accumulator).
Super-Yankee	As above, but five selections combined into a total of 26 bets (ten trebles, ten doubles, five four-horse accumulators and a five-timer).

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