Picking Profitable Bets in Horse Racing Handicapping

Making money betting on horses starts with the bet and ends with the bet. A lot is written about the horses, the races, jockeys, trainers, etc. While all these horse racing factors are important, if you really want to make money playing the horses, there are certain bets you need to find and take advantage of to make sure you end up with a bigger bankroll than you started with.

Just as there are profitable wagers there are also bad bets that should be avoided. Let's take a look at both kinds.

First of all, let's talk about bad horse racing bets. If you want to find a bad bet, just search online for the stories about big upcoming races. You will find them on the popular horseracing websites. While they are interesting to read and inform us of all the drama and the richness of horseracing, they also tout the best horses and handicap the races to pieces. By the time the racing pundits are done, anyone and everyone knows all they need to know about the race.

The horses will be bet down to ridiculous odds and you will find little value in the pools. Let's face it, our job as handicappers is to find imbalance, meaning to find a horse that is worth 2-1 but is going off at 3-1. That is the whole game, though it certainly is no easy task. You will very rarely find such situations in big or highly touted races (the recent Belmont being an obvious exception).

So if you are looking for good horse racing bets, the opposite applies, shun the big races and look for the everyday races, whether claimers, allowance, maiden and don't shy away from the smaller venues. You will find a horse by a little known trainer that is starting in a claiming race may be a better bet than that highly touted million dollar wonder in the Grade 1 race. The more scrutiny a race receives the less likely you will find a winner flying under the radar.

The best bets in horse racing are usually never spotted by a public handicapper and will be the product of you knowing the trainers and track better than the crowd.

Making money betting on horses starts with the bet and ends with the bet. A lot is written about the horses, the races, jockeys, trainers, etc. While all these horse racing factors are important, if you really want to make money playing the horses, there are certain bets you need to find and take advantage of to make sure you end up with a bigger bankroll than you started with.

Just as there are profitable wagers there are also bad bets that should be avoided. Let's take a look at both kinds.

First of all, let's talk about bad horse racing bets. If you want to find a bad bet, just search online for the stories about big upcoming races. You will find them on the popular horseracing websites. While they are interesting to read and inform us of all the drama and the richness of horseracing, they also tout the best horses and handicap the races to pieces. By the time the racing pundits are done, anyone and everyone knows all they need to know about the race.

The horses will be bet down to ridiculous odds and you will find little value in the pools. Let's face it, our job as handicappers is to find imbalance, meaning to find a horse that is worth 2-1 but is going off at 3-1. That is the whole game, though it certainly is no easy task. You will very rarely find such situations in big or highly touted races (the recent Belmont being an obvious exception).

So if you are looking for good horse racing bets, the opposite applies, shun the big races and look for the everyday races, whether claimers, allowance, maiden and don't shy away from the smaller venues. You will find a horse by a little known trainer that is starting in a claiming race may be a better bet than that highly touted million dollar wonder in the Grade 1 race. The more scrutiny a race receives the less likely you will find a winner flying under the radar.

The best bets in horse racing are usually never spotted by a public handicapper and will be the product of you knowing the trainers and track better than the crowd.