Updated Ratings Guide 2021
Common Abbreviations
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TR – Top Rated
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TS – Top Speed
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TSUM – Top Speed Under The Mile
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TJ – Top Jockey
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TT – Top Trainer
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TST – Top Stallion
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TTO – Top Today
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SOG – Sea Of Green (Green Across Ratings)
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DSR – Days Since Last Run
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OR – Official Rating
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LR – OR – Last Run Official Rating
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2R – Second Rated (Below TR)
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JTS – Jockey Trainer Stallion
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HC – Handicap
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NHC – Non Handicap
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C – Course Winner
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D – Distance Winner
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CD – Course And Distance Winner
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SP – Starting Price
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TOTS – Top Of The Stats
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WR/SR – Win Rate / Strike Rate
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The T's- Horse's At The Bottom Of The Race Card
The Ratings – How?
Speed - formulated by looking at key stats and assigning points to horses ( some of which can be found below ) according to how they have performed over each stat.
The system will run 20+ different scenarios across all races the horse has taken part in within 1-2 furlong either side of todays race distance. (Track, Distance, Going, Best Rating, Average Rating)
Jockey, Trainer & Stallion - Ratings work in similar ways, They assign points by looking at the strike rates of how each performs at the track, distance & going. 1 year & 2 year stats for stallion & 14 day and 30 day form for jockey & trainers.
The overall rating is then ran through the HSB formula using the above stats and some special levellers because trainer/ jockey A may have had more runs than trainer/ jockey B so we need to bring the ratings into line without any outliers.
Today - The today rating looks at all of todays race criteria and assigns points based on performances before being ran through the HSB rating formula. (Career, Class, Direction, Distance, Going, Handicap/ Non Handicap, NH Race Type, Track, Track and Distance, Stall and Weight.
HSB – More Than Just Ratings
On the site we also have...
Jockey Stats: This sheet has stats for a Jockey in the last 14 days and 30 days which includes Runs, Wins and their Win rate. We can also see the Jockeys stats for that particular track and for that particular trainer.
Trainer Stats: This sheet has stats for a Trainers results in the last 14 days and 30 days which includes Runs, Wins and their Win rate. We can also see the Trainers stats for the particular course.
OR Report: This is the Official Rating Report. This includes many different stats revolving around the horse. One of the most important ones included is the highest OR a horse has won off, we can cross reference this to the normal ratings we use. For example, A horse LR-OR was 70, They are running today on 73, we can check the OR report to see if the horse has won off that amount or higher, or if they haven’t, we know there is some risk to backing the horse.
TOTS: The TOTS is the Top Rated + different areas such as C&D, Class, Direction, Distance, Going, Headgear, Track. This simply means that the Horse is the Top Rated for the race and also has a 100% Win Rate in one of these categories. For example, a horse will make the Class TOTS category if it is TR for the race and has a 100% Win Rate in the class they are running in today.
Systems – These are some systems that HSB runs.
The T's – These are found at the bottom of a HSB race card. The T’s is simply a ranking system of every rating & stat that HSB uses. It ranks them all with 1 being the best ( rank 1 ) There will be 3 horses each race, T1, T2 and T3.
Simple Breakdowns – What To Look For
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The following bullet points are the simple breakdowns so you know what to look for straight away as soon as you start analysing a race, these should see you in the right direction and help you cut down on time analysing.
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Handicap Races- All Ratings, Overall Colours, High Rated Horses.
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Maidens / Novices- JTS, The T's.
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Sprint Races (Races Under 1m) - Speed Rating
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Non Handicap - JTS, The T's
The Basics
The below image is the standard HSB race card. From left to right we have the horse, their form, their age, their DSR, the OR they are running on today, the OR that they ran on on their last race (LR-OR) and finally their stall number, if applicable.
The HSB race card includes Speed, Jockey, Trainer, Stallion and Today ratings. Each rating has their own importance, for example, Speed is important in a sprint race, which is any race under 1m long. The JTS ratings are also key factors when we don’t know much about a horse, ie novices or maidens. When we see a handicap race, we need to take into account all ratings. This is also covered on the previous slide.
The ratings are colour coded, green is good, red is bad. The below race at first may be difficult to decipher, however, we can see the race details at the top (5f Class 4 Handicap) which means we take all ratings into account. It is also a 5f race, meaning this is the shortest sprint race in horse racing, therefore we should look to the speed ratings.
We can see that Tin Hat has TS of the race, but that is about the only thing going for it with the rest of the horse ratings being red. The next fastest horse is Saaheq, who is also TR for the race, but is running off 4 more than last time which we can see on LR-OR and OR, and also has the worst trainer rating along with Tin Hat. Now, we come to Outrage, who has the next best speed rating, along with the best jockey rating and the second best stallion. The horse is also on good form and is a CD winner and is running from the same weight as its last run 15 days before. Therefore, if looking to play the race, Outrage would be the play as it is also T1. Capla Spirit does also look good, BUT, the horses speed with a 5f race is a major put off.
Outrage won this race at 11/2 SP.
HSB – Handicap Breakdown
This race is a handicap race, so from the simple breakdowns in the previous slides, we should know that we are looking for overall colours, all ratings and higher up the ratings the better. From this, we should really only be looking at the Top 2 Horses on the ratings, these are TR Heross Du Seuil and 2R Cabot Cliffs.
Firstly we will start with TR, HDS, who is also TS, however with this being a 2m race, this stat isn't as important. We can also look to the left on the overall records of the horse, we can see there is only one previous run, the horse won this and the D next to the name shows that win was over the distance of today's race. However, with there only being one run for the horse, this provides serious doubt that the horse is worth the backing.
Now, we look at 2R, CC, this horse ticks many boxes for the race. The horse is TJ, TT and TST, the horse also has many runs that we can look at, and we can see that the horse is on good form and has won over CD. This already shows that we can trust this horse more if choosing to back, as there is more runs and statistics to look into. CC is also the highest rated OR in the race, with 129, the horses previous run was off 125, meaning today the horse is up 4. With accessing the OR report, we can also see that 125 is the highest the horse has won off.
Now to the Ts, Cabot fills the T1 spot and HDS fills T2. From analysis, if looking to play this race, we should be backing Cabot, the horse has more runs to look at than HDS, CC is also a CD winner, showing that the distance and course is not an issue, and overall has really good colours.
Cabot won the race at 15/8 SP, HDS was a 4/7 2nd.
HSB – Maiden / Novice Breakdown
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Now we are going to discuss how we tackle the task of a Maiden/Novice Races, these types of races tend to mean that there a lots of unknowns. Maiden Races are for horses that haven't won a race, and Novice races are for an inexperienced racehorse which has not run in a certain number of races of a particular type, or not won in such races. From this and our break downs, we should know that for these races we should look to non specific horse ratings (rating that aren't based on the horses performance) such as Jockey, Trainer and Stallion, which we know as JTS.
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These types of races are often ones you may like to avoid, such as the unpredictability of how a horse may run, however, if you do want to play the race, then we can break it down below.
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From the simple breakdowns, we should now know that maidens mean looking at the T's and JTS. Here we can see that Desert Marathon and Epic Express fill the JTS Criteria, with Pina Collada, Discomatic (Also TR) and Epic Express claiming the T's.
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This is a difficult race to break down in terms of finding a winner, Epic Express is the only horse that fits the JTS and T's criteria, but also has a 0.0 for the today score, meaning they’ve not ran on these conditions, therefore we don’t know how the horse will take to todays conditions. Discomatic also has a lower (light red) Jockey and Stallion score, and Pina Collada has a low Stallion score.
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As mentioned in the 2nd point on this slide, it is often best to leave these races, there is so much better opportunity to find winners elsewhere during a days racing.
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Discomatic won this race at 5/4 SP.
HSB – Analysing Races: Big Field Maidens
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As mentioned in previous slides, we should always be looking to pick the easiest races to get involved with, but as looked at previously, small fields doesn’t exactly mean an easy pick, small field races can be just as open as large field races.
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In a larger field, there is logistically a lot more that can go wrong, for example, more horses means more can go wrong I.e. getting blocked in running etc. As I mentioned before, there may be a couple of horses that you like in a bigger field meaning you may back both, but let's have a look at how we can analyse a big field, and whether we should play these kind of races in our main bets.
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The below race is a large field race, and is also a maiden hurdle, meaning all these horses have never won a hurdle race. Straight away we can see there's unraced horses, plenty of greens and plenty of reds. If looking to break this down we should be looking at the T's and the JTS, remembering JTS criteria is for horses that are green across those 3 ratings, therefore from this race a few fit that; Stranger Danger, Pale Blue Dot, Rosgalme. It is not coincidence that these 3 horses are also the ones that make the T ratings.
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However, just because we've narrowed it down to 3, should we play this race? As we look across, Stranger Danger has just 3 runs, Pale Blue Dot has 4 runs and Rosgalme has 2. Hopefully from reading this, you have also come to the conclusion that this would be a race to leave, larger fields are always hard to pick a winner in, let alone in maidens also.
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TR Breakeven won this race at 5/2, Stranger Danger was a 7/1 2nd. A forecast for the ratings. However, this race should still be one you leave.
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The second race on the right is the same breakdown and same ruler, however, it is a little clearer and there’s only one horse that fits the JTS Breakdown for a maiden, that horse is Stepney Causeway, who also won the race at 15/8 SP.
HSB – Analysing Races: Small Fields
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The HSB ratings are as much about finding races to avoid as they are helping you find winners. How you pick which races to get involved with will certainly determine your win rate. Once you are used to the ratings, you will know whether you should play a race in a matter of seconds.
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Picking the easier races will more than likely be easier once you’ve understood what could be a potential banana skin. To me, when analysing a race, if there's a small field (up to 8 runners) we should only be looking for a straight forward winner, with little dangers. In a bigger field, there may be a couple of horses that you like the look of, you may choose to back both known as "Dutch" where you split your stake, or you may leave the race completely.
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The race below is a 2m Grade 3 Hurdle from Fairyhouse, we can see straight away that there is just 5 runners in the race, but that there's plenty of greens all over, and lots of different ratings that the horses boast, meaning we can see straight away how open this race is even though it’s a small field. What I mean by this is that Sixshooter is TR, TST and T2. Petit Mouchoir is TT and T3, and Jason The Militant is TJ, TTO, and T1. We can also see that the 3 main horses we've analysed show similar form and that they’ve all won over the distance.
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This analysis took 30 seconds, and in my opinion, we have 3 horses out of the 5 that can likely win. Therefore this race should be a NO BET RACE. There are many better races during a day to get involved with than this one.
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For context, Jason The Militant won this race.
HSB – Analysing Races – Good Opportunities
The below race is the perfect example of ones we should be looking out for daily. A small field so inevitably less dangers on field and we can see below that on the race card there are less dangers too. The below race is a handicap therefore is all ratings and highest up we look, and really, we shouldn’t be looking past the TR horse.
Luckys Dream the TR horse is a course winner, in relatively good form and is running from 87 today, having its last run from 84. From checking the OR Report I can see that the highest OR Lucky has ran from is 86, meaning 87 should not be too much of a problem. However, even without this, unless its plus 5 or more, don’t be too worried about a rise in weights. 84 to 87 is not much too be concerned about. 84 to 90, would be.
Lucky also has the TJ score for the race and has overall very nice stats, any other horse we can see has at least one dark red. Lucky is also quite clear of the 2R horse Songkran, which we can see in the total column.
Lucky also fills the T1 spot. As said before, these races are the ones we should be looking to play, this DOES NOT mean the horse will win every time, we are still betting on animals and even the best horse for the race on the day, may not run very well, may get hampered in the field etc, all we can do is give ourselves the best opportunities to earn some money by breaking down correctly and picking the better races.
Lucky's Dream won this race at 5/4. Songkran was a 9/2 2nd.
HSB – Analysing Races – Good Opportunities & Cross Referencing
This slide is basically the same as the last slide, its another sort of race that we should be looking for daily, and again, it's easy enough that we do not even need to look past the TR.
Dragons Will Rise is a CD Winner, is in really good form and is running off the same weight from their last race. The Horse is also TJ and TTO, along with scoring really well across the board and boasting the T1 rank. We can call this horse Sea Of Green (SOG)
By diving into the Jockey Stats from this race also, we can see that jockey Robert Havlin has won 2/3 rides for DWR trainer Micky Hammond. Robert Havlin also has the second best win rate of the jockeys in this race at Wolves. You get all of this information without even having to leave the HSB site!
Of course these are factors that are going in the favour of the horse, however, just the rating card is good enough to suggest this horse is a good bet.
No other horse in the race is particularly a danger with all of them having at least one red rating. As mentioned on the last slide, nothing is guaranteed with the ratings, with any bet but, we give our self the best chance of winning by picking races such as the one below.
Dragons Will Rise won at 10/3 SP, which also took Havlin to winning 3 of 4 rides for Hammond.
HSB - Track Breakdowns
On the HSB Site, we also now have Track Stats, these are rankings for every stat that HSB has, including every course, NH Stats, Flat Stats, All Weather Stats and Combined Stats. You can filter each of these by clicking on the green links at the side.
You can use these to cross reference any picks you may have, for example, you may have two or three horses that are a high today rating, you can go to check the track today's rating (how well TTO has performed historically at said track) and see how profitable it is. You can do this for every stat.
On the next couple of slides, we will show you just how you find what qualifies for these rankings.
HSB – Track Breakdown Qualifiers: Part 1
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Step 1: Open the ratings and press the download button. You will see this in the taskbar above.
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Step 2: When open, you will need to go to the bottom task bar and select "rankings" You should now see something like the below image.
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Follow the next slide for the next part.
HSB – Track Breakdown Qualifiers: Part 2
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Step 3: Now, we have to select which ranking we are sorting. For example, right now I have looked on Track Stats page for Wolves, I can see that J-30DAY% Rank 1 has performed really well, with a 17% Win Rate and 359.37 PL. Meaning if you had £1 on every selection, you would be £359.37 in profit.
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Step 4: We have now identified a successful system, we now need to filter the downloaded ratings, which we should have on the rankings section to find any qualifiers. On the track section, we click the down arrow, text filters and then contains, if you type in "WOL" then press "OK" you will then have filtered to show all the wolves runners on the day.
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These stages are shown below.
HSB – Track Breakdown Qualifiers: Part 3
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Step 5: I have now filtered to only show Wolves races, as shown previously. Now, upon scrolling across, I have found J-30DAY%. I need to press the down arrow and press Number Filters. Once you have clicked this, more options will come up. You need to click where it says equals. You will then put 1. Once selected, I will now have filtered all the horses that qualify for the system. If none show up, there are no qualifiers (of course if all steps have been followed correctly)
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Repeat the process from Step 3 to find any other qualifiers for different systems and/or tracks.
HSB – Members Benefits
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Along with what you have seen today, something HSB prides itself on is their happy members and community. On telegram, there is an active group of members that discuss ratings daily like we have shown on this presentation. There are many happy people willing to help and enthusiastic to learn with each other to enhance the enjoyment of the journey of learning the ratings! Along with this, there is also a separate group for members in which people can post their best bets so any potential winners aren't missed throughout the day. HSB also runs many competitions which members can engage with, these all promote sensible betting and helps people to learn through the art of discussion.
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HSB thoroughly cares about their members and wants their betting experience to be a fun and sensible one, to encourage this, HSB provides a free Profit and Loss sheet that can help you track your betting. There is an example below (not real) Instructions on how to use this are on the appropriate document
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Finally, HSB also saves you time with a telegram results channel, so you don’t even need to leave the app to find out if your horse was first past the post.
HSB – General Talking Points
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Whether you are new to betting on horses or not, we should always be aiming to assess our bets, how we bet, how we pick and our results. From the previous slides, we should now know what to look out for in a race, what means a horse has a good chance, what dangers could there be to said horse etc.
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We need to remember that betting on horses is a long term game, this should never be a quick way to make money, the ratings are not magic, they are an excellent tool to help you win, but it is up to your discipline and how you pick your bets that will decide if you are a successful bettor or not.
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You may find that you leave 90% of races on a day, but, if in your opinion, and how you analysed races means you left races because of unknows, or too many dangers, this is as much a win as finding a winning horse. As mentioned before, we should always be looking for the best opportunities to bet on, if that means that we only have 1 bet a day, so be it.
HSB – DO'S AND DON’T'S
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DO:
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Be Sensible
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Discuss, Analyse and Study Races
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Enjoy! The Ratings are a learning curve.
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Use all your resources to your advantage
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Keep bets minimal, the more bets you place, the more you'll need to require to win to profit (at certain odds)
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Track your PL (HSB Provides a free tracking sheet)
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DON’T:
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Expect to win every race
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Bet more than you can afford.
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Feel like you have to bet every race (Quality over Quantity)
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Share the ratings with any non members.
HSB Disclaimers
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The ratings are an excellent tool to help you become a more successful bettor. They do not guarantee a win, as does nothing, this is a game where we bet on Animals, if they don’t perform on the day, there’s nothing that can be done.
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However, you can put these ratings into your strategy, learn them, study them, see what works and most important in any betting, be sensible and be patient!
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Gambling, especially on Horses can be really tough, and you will have good and bad patches. If you ever feel like you are losing control of your betting, or emotions are getting in the way, please refer to the website below.
Thank You!
Thank you for reading the guide, hopefully you have found this guide informative and feel more confident in your abilities to pick the correct races and the correct horses, remember, this guide is not going anywhere, so feel free to check whenever you need to!
Any feedback or anything we can improve is greatly appreciated!
