One of the secrets of successfully betting on horse races and making a profit from your handicapping, is knowing which races to play. Here are some thoughts and observations from years of playing the races and watching the sport of horseracing.

First of all, if you try to handicap and bet on all the races, you’re going to lose. You need to specialize and really focus if you want to beat the odds. The whole point of handicapping and setting fair odds for each contender is to spot a weakness in the crowd’s betting. It is a battle between you and the world, well at least the world of handicappers out there.

The way to win a battle is to pit your strength against their weakness. So therefore, before you figure them out, you need to know what you are good at. The way to find out is to pick a type of race, such as cheap claimers of less than a mile, and to only handicap them for a while and see how you do. Handicap those horse races and set what you consider fair odds for each contender.

Then compare your odds to what each horse went off at and if any of them would have provided a betting opportunity for you that you could have made a profit on. If you keep finding a recurring situation where you make a profit, start to play, but only when you are sure you have it mastered. On the other hand, if you find that you are continually underestimating horses in a particular situation, adjust your thinking and odds accordingly.

Once you have a few situations that you feel confident about, start making small bets and keep developing your skill, consider this boot camp. You are developing your ability to spot a good bet and the only thing that makes a bet good is that the crowd doesn’t know the true value of the bet. I realize that this is not easy, but it is possible.

Knowing your own strengths and the crowds weakness is how you win. You must practice, try each type of race and track and keep good notes. How many trials should you perform before you start really betting the races? Hundreds of races is not too many, but that all depends upon you and how you manage to learn and progress. The important thing is that you choose when you play and what you play and never let the enemy use their strength against your weakness. The great advantage a handicapper has against a gambler is that a gambler feels he or she must play almost every race while a handicapper picks and chooses.