In part one of this series we looked at how to find the factors that you’re going to be using to build your system and how to make sure that they’re different to the way other punters are looking at the races.
You should now have a list of every factor that you think is important and the reason why. Underneath each of those factors there should be a number of different ways that you could calculate this information.
Awesome.
Now, we need to look at the next major component of building a betting system…
Choosing The Race Conditions
This is probably the most overlooked aspect of building a betting system. The most acknowledgment race conditions normally get, is the race type and whether you want selections for Flat, AW, Chase or Hurdles.
Once this decision has been made it usually follows that at some point during the build process more race condition rules are put in place, such as “maximum ten runners” or “only class 3 or 4”.
The problem with this is that adding race conditions at this point in the build is not the right time to do it. The only reason they’re being added here is because it helps to make a profit from the betting system.
That sounds exactly like what we should be doing right?
Wrong.
Yes, we want to increase profit from our betting system. But, we need to do it in a specific order if we’re going to maximise it’s advantage going forward when we start betting live.
You know when you’ve spent ages building a system and start betting it live and it falls apart in the first few weeks?
That’s because the building blocks for it have been put together in the wrong order. It’s building a house but putting the foundations on the roof. The house isn’t going to stand up for very long compared to properly built houses.
Every set of race conditions requires a slightly different method of analysis. If you start with sprints or long distance then you know you’ll need more emphasis on speed and pace in the sprints than the long distances, and more stamina in the long distances than the sprints. If you consider the class of the race then you know whether you should be looking for droppers, risers or those who are proven at the level etc…
You should determine your race conditions as the number one step in building your betting system.
Which means you’re probably wondering why I’ve put it as step number 2.
The reason for that is because I wanted you to think of factors that were important in racing, not specific to race conditions, because whatever we think is important to a set of race conditions there’s only one thing that we know with 100% accuracy…
We do not know which racing factors are going to be important for a set of race conditions until we test them
So, I wanted to make sure that you’d thought of factors first and built a comprehensive list without having in mind a set of race conditions.
Today, you need to choose the race conditions that you’re most interested in. And by that I mean you need to be really interested, you’re going to spend a lot of time looking into them so you’ve got to enjoy them.
The rule that you must always remember is:
- Don’t be afraid to be highly specific
I call these race conditions a filter because we’re filtering out a specific set of races. If the conditions you choose are so specific that there aren’t enough runners in it to build a viable system, then it’s much easier to expand your filter out than it is to reduce it.
When I say “highly specific” I mean look at the race type, classifications, number of runners, distances, going, course and prize money. You should have made choices for each of these before you begin building your system.
Do this and you’ll know what sort of races you’re building a system for. You’ll have the foundations to your house, and once you’ve got those you can start to build the walls.
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