JESSICA-FAY HARDING

Tot up form figures to increase your chance of consistency

Amethod of analysis and selection occurs every time you consider betting. I will now show you a simple method centred on consistency obtained from form figures. In the selection process, we can use any of the main factors which constitute what is essentially known as form. The consistency method is available in the racing pages of our daily papers and in The Racing Post.

In these publications, you will find a series of figures to the left-hand side of the horses’ names. These are known as form figures. The late Che Van De Wheil, known as the Flying Dutchman, wrote extensively on his methods in the “Sports Forum” section of the Raceform Handicap Book in the early 1980s. Consistency (constant form) was his first component. I have taken a variation of this concept to form the consistency method.

1. The race must be a Handicap and consist of eight to 14 runners. However, this does not stop us from considering races with more than 14 runners and adjusting the field to our maximum size of 14 runners by taking out horses with a very small chance of winning.

2. The consistency element is the last three form figures and we are looking for the lowest of these to select our horse or horses from. We use this in conjunction with the results-affecting factors process.

3. Use only the last three form figures. The figures are: win (1), second (2,) third (3) and so on until we get to the figure nine. A prospective selection who has a nought in its form is given ten points as are those that have pulled up, fallen or been brought down. Any disqualified horse retains the point figure that it would have gained if it hadn’t been disqualified.

4. Our final selection would be the horse with the lowest number of points. There are numerous factors within the result-affecting factor process, but experience has taught me that certain factors are more important than others. While all factors can have a bearing on the result of a race, we trust that the principal aspects will see our selection home.

When using the results-affecting factors process, one must use common sense but the factors are clearly stated and must be adhered to if one is to get accurate selections.

I have given three examples to illustrate this method from three pertinent Handicap races. The first is the Class 3 Coopers Marquee Hire Handicap Veterans’ Chase run at Newcastle on November 11, 2016. There were nine runners and the form figure numbers were 9, 28, 18, 10, 16, 17, 19, 13 and 17.

The lowest figure, 9, was made up of the last form figures of 6,1,2. This was the favourite, Jet Master (IRE,) ridden by Grant Cockburn (3) and trained by A. W. Alexander. In its previous race on October 29, 2016, this horse was held up in the early stages but made excellent headway into second place behind the easy winner, Fred Le Macon (FR.) The nature of Jet Master’s performance in this race indicted to me that he could win a Class 3 on a lower-rated Class course than Ayr.

It had the joint top-rated Racing Post rating of 136 and won the race by three-quarters of a length from Rosquero at 3/1. Rosquero was the second favourite with a form figure rating of 17.

Jet Master (IRE) was the second choice in the Racing Post’s “Verdict” feature and Zaru was given as the compiler’s selection.

Our next race is the Betfred Becher Chase Grade 3 Handicap on

December 3, 2016. This was a Grade 3 Class One event over 3m2f run over the Grand National course. The field was out of the parameters of the method as there were 24 runners. But through a reliable elimination method, I reduced the field to 14. My pick for the race happened to coincide with “Verdicts” selection which was the good groundloving Saint Are.

Unfortunately, it fell at the first fence. Not only was that a surprise to me but that the race was eventually won by a 7-year-old trained by David Pipe, Vieux Lion Rouge. Up until this race, this age group was 0/47. This is a strong statistic and I would personally be against 7-year-olds in future renewals of this race.

In this standard of race, I extend the use of form figures to include those representing the series of results of the previous season/s when appropriate. As you will have gathered, taking the first few consistency form figures to reduce the selection process to a workable number is a basic ingredient of this method.

Our next race was a Class 3 Handicap Chase over 4m 1/2f won by Harry the Viking. He won by 5 lengths having been eased on the run-in. His form from Carlisle where he finished second indicated to me that he could win this race with something to spare. This makes this horse one to be considered wherever he runs next. Until next time, good investing.