The TrackMate race guides have been designed in such a way to be easy to read and easy to understand. Below are some examples of real race card ratings and how to easily start to pick winners.

• Rating Colours Explained – Understanding what the colours represent.
• How should I be using TrackMate? – Get the basics right first.
• The “Messy Race” – A good example of what should be a no bet race.
• The “Standout Selection” – What you should be looking for in an ideal selection.
• The “Value Bet” – Looking for well-rated horses at big prices.
• The “Lay Bet” – Be a bookie and “take one on”. Poorly rated favourites worth laying.

Rating Colours Explained

We need to start with explaining what the rating colours mean before trying to explain anything else:

How should I be using TrackMate?

There are many ways to use the TrackMate system and many ways to read the “picture” created by the colour-coded ratings integrated into the card.

It can be used as your only method of selection or in conjunction with your own race reading abilities and knowledge of form. Both are extremely powerful.

Remember, you do not have to bet in every race.

The TrackMate Team

Waiting for the right opportunity and most importantly, waiting for value is the key to success.

Here are some examples of the type of picture you may come across:

The “Messy Race”

In this race card example, you can see that the colours (ratings) all over the place. Nothing stands out as any better than the others because the colours are spread out across all of the runners.

With this type of picture we would normally just move on to the next race… but is it worth a closer look? There might be an opportunity lurking somewhere. We are looking for a well-rated horse that represents good value.

Can we clean up/filter the card and spot some value?

Possible ways to clean a messy card:

• Remove poorly rated horses from the ratings.
• Check the going settings in the Race Card FIlter match today’s conditions.
• Rate less runs. You can rate 3, 5 or 8.
• Filter the remaining runners for Surface, Ground and Distance perhaps?

If after exhausting all options you do not find an obvious or good value selection just move on to the next race.

You do not need to find lots of selections. Just well rated and good value ones. If there are none that day, be patient, there will always be another race and another… and another!

The “Standout Selection”

You will see from this race card picture that there is an obvious contender. It is not hard to spot… green is good!

The obvious horse to choose in the race above was “Bay Of Naples“. This picture indicates that the horse is:

• Clear top-rated in “Rating 365”, “Rating Latest”, “Rating 100”, “Rating 200”, “Edge Latest”, “Edge 100” and “Edge 200”.
• Top rated in “Win %”, “Fastest Standard” and “Average Standard”.
• The stack best rating is top as is the stack latest.
• The trend is improving/consistent.

Everything you want in an investment based on the TrackMate ratings.

The “Value Bet”

In theory all your bets should be value bets. The race example above is from this year’s ultra competitive Lanzarote hurdle and amazingly the winner “Boreham Bill” was totally unfancied at an incredible price of 66/1 and even bigger on the exchanges!

In a scenario like this we would prefer the 80% to place and 20% to win staking strategy.

In a big race like this one you will be able to obtain prices for as many as 6 places on the exchange.

The “Lay Bet”

To those of you already familiar with the betting exchanges you will be aware of laying horses. It is essentially acting as the bookmaker and laying odds against the horse winning.

In the above example the favourite “Luxford” looks like terrible value based on the TrackMate ratings and could potentially be the sort of horse you might want to lay on the exchanges.

ALWAYS be cautious when using this function on an exchange. Make sure you understand betting exchanges before you attempt to lay horses.