To be successful in horse racing, you need an edge.
Finding small edges in horse racing form can be quite hard but there are several websites to make it easier!
Some punters have the talent to find edges by just watching races. Some go to the track and have an edge from courtsiding. Others can find them in stats, but to find those edges you need to be looking in the right places.
In this article, we’re going to give you the best places to study Horse Racing Form and Statistics…
Why Are Statistics Important In Horse Racing?
Many things can impact a race. Ground, weight, sex, distance, jockeys, and trainers to name a few. Not every stat will be useful but there are some critical ones when looking at horse racing form. When the ground is heavy and you have an unraced two-year-old; how do you know if the horse will like the ground? Simple: Sire stats.
Having an edge is crucial in betting. Without an edge you won’t win money, it’s as simple as that. So any edge that can be gained from using the stats correctly is worth having.
It takes some work to fully understand what is useful and what isn’t, but nowadays you can run the numbers against the Betfair SP and see what’s profitable long-term.
For example, does a certain Sire produce two-year-olds that are naturally more forward than others? If yes, run this against the Betfair Starting Price of those horses and see if backing them blindly is profitable. Perhaps it isn’t profitable, except on Good ground and bingo you have a stat that pays!
Think about it like an Iceberg, the media cover what you can see. But to be really profitable you have to focus on what the general public can’t see!
The Best Places To Find Racing Statistics
Over the years you get to know the good sites from the bad. There are a couple that go the extra mile. Here is our list:
ProForm Stats
ProForm Stats are easily the best provider of horse racing data out there. You can run any number of tests. You can run Sire stats, ground stats, distance stats and much more. For anyone looking for an obscure edge that could be found in horse racing data, then ProForm Stats is the place to look. Even if you’re betting each way…
We actually can’t think of an angle that ProForm wouldn’t have. If you’re into Trainer form in the last 14 days or Jockey form at each course, they have all that too. If you’re more advanced, ProForm allows you to export the data easily and run it against your own models. You might hear the usual stats in the media, but ProForm goes beyond those meaningless stats and gets into the real nitty-gritty of horse racing data.
TimeForm
Timeform has some vital tools that most horse racing punters will need to study horse racing form. There is a free version and a subscription to race passes, which will have TimeForm ratings which many punters value highly.
On TimeForm you will also find the Betfair SP data on each results section. You can pull data from here and run it against your analysis to see are your angles profitable long-term at the Betfair SP. If you find something that’s profitable at Betfair SP, it’s highly likely to be more profitable in the morning of the race!
TimeForm also offer data on how high or low each horse traded in running. A vital piece of data if you like backing to lay front runners for example. TimeForm is will cut down on time spent studying with the way their display their race passes. For example, they have a list of horses likely to improve and perhaps you might like to focus on them when going through a race meeting.
Racing Post
The Racing Post is by far the most popular choice for studying horse racing form. That doesn’t mean that it’s the best of course, as we believe the top two mentioned have more to offer. However, the Racing Post remains one of the best places to find form, watch races and get your daily racing news.
For the average racing fan, the Racing Post has everything. For someone who is a little more advanced and is really looking for those statistical edges, it won’t be up to standard. If you just like to study form, watch races back, read the comments made in running then the Racing Post subscription is all you need. It’s the best place to start for new racing fans.
BetWise
BetWise is for the most advanced data hunters! BetWise offers raw data that you will need to filter and analyse yourself. It’s a little different from ProForm. BetWise says they help with “custom research, data analysis, system development, backtesting and automatic selection, betting market analysis, betting robots” so if that’s what you’re looking for then BetWise is for you.
We feel that you would have to be very advanced data wise to get the most out of BetWise, and perhaps it would be better to start with ProForm and go from there.
At The Races & Racing TV
At The Races and Racing TV provide an excellent service to be fair. One is free while the other isn’t, but they both provide excellent content. They have easy to read form on both sites and the ability to watch replays is massive for all horse racing fans. I feel like you would need to couple these sites with some of the others mentioned above, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth visiting.
So there are our top five places to visit. We don’t think you would need anywhere else outside those places and they obviously fall into different brackets of experience too. Start with the Racing Post along with At The Races and Racing TV, then work your way to ProForm and TimeForm, finally finishing with BetWise.
Get a Free £30 Bet when you sign-up for Betfair via this link.
What You Should Be Looking For
You need to find an edge, and you need to find one that not many other punters have. It’s as simple as that. You are looking for a profitable strategy that isn’t used by everyone – otherwise it won’t be profitable anymore! Professional punters might spend hours looking for edges on ProForm, only to see them only last for two weeks before “the crowd” know and it’s not worth betting on anymore. Then the grind to find the next edge starts.
The reality is that everyone is looking for this data, they’re looking for something that’s repeatable and they will make money every day. When there’s so many looking for this data, you have to work hard to find the nuggets of gold that others haven’t found yet. It’s hard work, but it’s possible. It’s hard work that’s worth doing!
Let us know your favourite sites in the comments below…
11 thoughts on “Best Horse Racing Form & Statistics Websites (Databases)”
Never been a stats person its far to random. IMO Every race is to be taken as a separate entity. If you have patience can be beaten. Stick with good races, horses in low class races are inconsistent .
Yes much of horse racing can seem random. But you have to consider that bookmakers would be out of business if it were truly random. They cannot just pluck figures from thin air. They use statistics to their advantage. And so can punters if they look carefully enough.
Agree completely but there is another world out there. Those low class races are indeed inconsistent. It appears a complete lottery! However, having had some contact with owners and trainers who operate in these races it is clear that the know when to bet and when not to bet. Being privvy to inside knowledge is for the lucky (and rare) few .. BUT there might be some signals within datasets that give them away. It is a whole different discipline but there is a code to be cracked.
I would like to be able to utilise a very large database to run starts queries in different jurisdictions
Yes, looking for good trainers who have only one horse running that day can produce some good place betting. Looking at their percentage win rate and that of the jockey, I’ve had a few big price tickles that way.
Horse race base not even mentioned????
Hello
A site I’ve recently launched, racing api, would be a good addition to this list.
It’s a comprehensive horse racing data API, serving data from a database of 200,000+ results.
It’s built with company and developer use in mind, but tech savvy punters could also gain a lot from it.
What is the site? Can you send me a link?
checking this uk dataset it’s pretty good stats a savvy too.
Hiya caan, this might appear to be a strange thing to ask but i’ll risk it anyway.
I use horseracebase but only for the purpose of accessing their data regarding AVERAGE OR V TODAYS OR, in my opinion there’s value in this thinking but subscribing to a service for a few numbers seems daft, do you know of a free service that offers the same info ?
regards
dave
ps… today i’ve gone with DAWN OF LIBERATION 4/1