The Sharp 10 Rating in horse racing

Chris Fawcett, Co-founder of SharpBetting.co.uk, explains how a rating can evolve into a recommendation when looking for signs of positive betting value. All the SharpBetting videos are available here or go to our YouTube channel.

Video Transcript

David

Hey, Chris, a couple of questions on the racing ratings. As background, a mate of mine went to Ascot this summer, called me up, wanted some tips. I sent him our race cards. He was going to go crazy. I said, keep calm. He did a tenner each way on every race through the card. Phoned me on the way back. He was two hundred and fifty quid in profit, which is great, obviously. But I tried to explain that the ratings on their own are not necessarily a tip. So I just want you to explain what goes into the ratings and how you end up with a score out of ten for each horse.

Chris

Okay, sure. Yeah. So for our racing ratings on our race cards, every race, every day in England and Ireland, we produce a single rating out of ten for every horse. Now that's built from analysis of the form, the jockey, the trainer, the going, the distance, the course, the pedigree and the owner. For every one of those factors we calculate a rating. Then we combine all those factors together to give a rating for each horse. And then we then, on top of that, compare the ratings that each horse have got. And if loads of rating horses are really highly rated, then they'll all have a rating of around five out of ten. They're all sort of level off. If there's just one that's way ahead, then that will be a ten out of ten. So how it tends to work is it will show you how competitive the race is. And also, yeah, if a horse is way clear, then it's not a competitive race. If they're all similar, then it is a competitive race.

The ratings are not really a tip as such. They're just saying what we think is the best horse in the race.

So they're not really a tip as such. They're just saying what we think is the best horse in the race. So the one in purple on the race card will be the horse we think is the best.

David

Right. without putting the odds involved for each horse in conjunction with the rating, it's not a tip? It's a process of a system. It's not an entire system. Is that how I would describe it?

Chris

Yes, it's not. It doesn't take price into account at all. So price is not input into the model. So that means that yeah, we could have the top horse as ten, well clear, and it's the one to twenty shot. So it's not necessarily a value bet. You're not necessarily going to make money if you just back that. But it's part of the process.

When building an actual winning system, what I would do is build a rating system first and then move that on as part of the input, including pricing and other things later in the model.

When building an actual winning system, what I would do is build a rating system first and then move that on as part of the input, including pricing and other things later in the model. So it's kind of like a starting point and it's a guide. So if you're going for one day at the races, yeah, so I might use it myself on a six race card. It would be a good starting point just to back all the top rated. But longer term, yeah, you've got to take into account the price.

David

Great. Yeah. So I think that's a great distinction. There's a difference between a rating and value in the market. And I think those things are often sort of conflated as one. So yeah, anecdotally, we get a lot of good feedback about them on X. A mate of mine, earlier this summer, we had just released this, and he... his wife actually, went to the big May meeting at Chester. She had never been racing before. Again, she just took the top rated and her colleagues thought she had some sort of insider knowledge. And again, great anecdotal evidence that the rating is strong, but without the price, it's not a long-term system.

Chris

No, it's never designed to be a system on its own. It's a tool. It's something that punters can use. Maybe they've got their own opinion. And they can look at it and say, oh, yeah, SharpBetting's got it as the top rated as well. And that can be useful information for them. And they can also look at the ratings for the individual factors like jockey, trainer, going. So we have all those individual things rated as well for people to look at.

David

Yeah. And actually, uh, there's on, on X Matthew Trenhaile does exactly that. He's a big racing guy, big betting guy, and he's got his own rating systems. I think he's got some investments in some horses as well, but he frequently posts that he uses various sort of assets in his arsenal for assessing what his bets are. And the sharp betting rating is one of those. So I think that's a good example as well.