The Beyer speed rating is one of the most practical ways the handicapper should begin his journey to choose the correct horse. The speed of a horse can alter the race in terms of how fast it takes the lead or when it decides to turn it on the stage. The speed classification was created by Andrew Beyer and although it gives us a numerical representation of a horse’s performance as a function of the final time of the track it ran on. The higher the speed figure, the better the performance, sounds simple, right? If you could hit the track and go big on the ones with the highest speed ratings all the time, you wouldn’t need this website.

When you look at the ratings and see a horse that regularly wins figures in the 50s and meets a handful of riders always in the 70s, we can generally throw this horse away. This simply strikes us that the horse is in a class below the horses it faces. It is not the actual figure that makes the difference, but how he acquired it at that speed. You are trying to reduce the actual speed of the horse, this is done by observing past figures that remain in the same range. Also a true one can be determined by a wire-to-wire horse with no real challengers.

You should also be aware of the horse that had a low speed rating last time, but has been stellar the previous ones. There could be a valid reason for this bad statistic. These horses can sometimes avoid gambling traffic and you can get some decent odds on a horse that wins the race easily. Look for the circumstances that offer the best value. Unfortunately, there are factors that influence the speed number, such as track skew, troubled trips, coach conditioning, post position, coach intent, etc. . These ratings are basically something to compare one horse to another to see which one is superior. The problem with speed ratings is that they are only fairly accurate for comparison if the same conditions were present that day with the same distance.

Numerous patterns have been studied to achieve a similarity between speed ratings, so in this modern age you can use them to your advantage in handicap horse racing. Here is a very simple approach you can apply

* Do this for each horse in the program, the more recent the races, the better the prediction of how fast the horse will run.

* Take the horses to the field and average your two best speed ratings at the distance today. (because distance plays a huge role in a horse’s speed)

* Make a note if the races are on the same track that is running today. If you can compare it to a horse that ran the same track, you have direct speed ratings and pick whichever is higher.

* After doing this for each horse, I like to take note of the top 3 and continue with my handicap. This gives a solid good use for the Beyer system in the modern era. This is very simple in process, but very effective and gives you a solid number to go from.

As you can see, the speed rating can be played in a number of ways. If you have horses you are comparing Beyer’s actual speed ratings to. You want to find if they ran the same distance and the same track under the same conditions, then you have a real comparison. You can compare these horses head to head and choose the one that is taller.

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What I like to do is keep looking for overlays of why they had a great trip or a bad one. If the horse has just had a bad start that is not characteristic of him, then you can dismiss that particular race that others are still watching. I always throw horses that have their overall speed rating much lower than the rest. Incorporate this simple formula while looking at the speed rating and make sure this is one of several bullets in your gun.