How to read horse racing form

However, if you’re new to horseracing, navigating a simple race card can be daunting and even overwhelming.

You’ll feel like the card is packed with codes and jargon that make little sense, but conceal important secrets about what is likely to happen in the race.

Fortunately, it’s quite simple to read racing form once you are equipped with the meanings of the codes and numbers on the cards.

Once you’re able to understand what form data means, the challenge you’ll face next is a bit trickier. You’ll need to understand how form data is likely to influence each horse’s performance in the race you’re planning on betting on.

What is form in horse racing?

Form in horse racing refers to a horse’s performance record. This can be tracked and presented in a few different ways:

• Comprehensive form: this allows you to review all of a horse’s performances for every race it has run across a variety of race formats over the course of its entire career. This type of form is only available online, as it is not practical to display this much information on a printed race card.
   
• Quick/recent form: quick form is the type of form you’re most likely to encounter when betting on racing. This form is printed next to the horse’s name on the race card and provides a brief overview of its performances over the course of its last five or six races.
   
• Custom form: some betting and racing websites may have customized ways of presenting form. These will usually be more self-explanatory than quick or comprehensive form. This is because custom form displays are designed for beginners, and make form easy to understand and use when predicting how a horse will perform in a race.

For the purposes of this article we will be focusing on the quick UK horse racing form format, which is also used by major British and European bookmakers.

However, note that the type of form data presented, and how it is displayed, can vary considerably in other countries where horseracing is popular, such as the United States and Australia.

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Horse racing recent form explained

You’re probably reading this because you’ve bumped into the lines of numbers, letters and symbols that appear beside every horse’s name on a race card.

Before we explain how to understand horse racing form it’s important to explain what the numbers around the form mean.

This is because some bookmakers and racing websites do not label the form on race cards, and instead print form alongside other numbers unrelated to the horse’s recent performance.

Finding the form

The following is an example of a single horse from a race card on a large online racing site.

Can you spot the form?

In this card the form is the string of numbers on the left of the image of red and white silks: -31452.

The single number above the form is the horse’s starting position or race number. Some bookmakers and racing sites will publish other numbers besides, above or underneath the form.

These can include the number of days since the horse last ran, or the horse’s age and the handicap weight it will be carrying.

The easiest way to identify the form is therefore to look out for a string of six numbers, letters and characters, and disregard any numbers above of below this.

Horse racing form abbreviations, numbers, letters and symbols explained

Now that you have found the form, you’re going to need to decode it. We’ll use another horse from the same race card we used earlier as an example.

Here’s how it works:

1. The list of six numbers and symbols are the results for the horses’ most recent races. These are listed in chronological order, with the oldest result on the left and the most recent result on the right.
2. Where a letter is used instead of a number, the horse did not complete the race or the result of the race was not valid, and the letter indicates why its race ended. These letters appear more frequently on National Hunt race cards because it is not unusual for jumps racehorses to fail to complete a race
3. Whenever you see a hyphen (the – symbol) or a forward slash (the / symbol) this is not a race result at all. Instead these indicate different types of breaks from racing.

The horse racing form abbreviations work as follows:

• Numbers 1–9 indicate the horse’s finishing position if it finished in the top nine
• The number 0 indicates that horse didn’t finish in the top nine
• The – symbol indicates a break between seasons in one calendar year, or that two races on either side of it took place in different years
• The / symbol indicates a break from racing longer than the off-season (i.e. longer than the typical break between racing seasons).

The most common abbreviations mean the following:

• P or PU – the horse was pulled up by the jockey
• F – the horse fell in the race
• R – the horse refused (i.e. refused to jump over an obstacle)
• BD – the horse fell after being struck by another horse in the field
• U or UR – the horse unseated the jockey

Less frequently you will see the following abbreviations for both jumps and flat racing:

• S – the horse slipped up
• HR – the horse hit the rails
• L – the horse was left at the start and did not compete meaningfully in the race
• O – the horse ran outside of the designated race course
• C – the horse was carried out, i.e. forced off the designated course by another horse
• D – the horse was disqualified
• V – the relevant race was voided for any reason (i.e. the race produced no result)

Once you have the meanings for these codes, you can easily make sense of the form on a race card.

Contextual form data

Many online race cards will display some additional data on horse form elsewhere on the card. A different set of letters to provide some information that is relevant to the context of the race that you are looking at, where this data is available.

Going back to the first example we looked at:

You’ll see that the letter ‘D’ is printed on a grey background beneath the horse’s name. This is an example of contextual form data. Usually you will only see one or two abbreviations displayed on the card.

Here’s what these abbreviations mean:

• C – horse has previously won at the course for this race
• D – horse has previously won over the distance for this race
• CD – horse has previously won over this course and distance
• BF – the horse started its most recent race as a favourite, and was beaten.

Putting it all together

Now that we have the ability to translate form on a race card, let’s use a fairly challenging example from a major UK racing website.

Looking at the example above, where the form reads 80-3P7 we can conclude that the horse:

1. Finished 8^th
2. Finished outside the top 10
3. Took a short break from racing
4. Placed 3^rd
5. Failed to finish the race because it was pulled up
6. Finished 7^th

In addition we can see from the ‘D’ beneath the horse’s name that it has won previously over the distance for this race.

What to look for in racing form

Understanding what horse racing form abbreviations and numbers mean is only half the battle won when it comes to learning how to read horse racing form.

Once you understand how the horse performed over recent races, you’ll need to understand what this means for its prospects in the race you’re planning on betting on.

Horse racing form analysis

The most important thing to understand about quick form is that it is designed to give you an overview of each horse in a field and is usually not enough, by itself, to select a horse to bet on.

Racing form is most effective when used to narrow down potential horses to investigate further, which you will need to do if you want to put a horse’s recent performances into context.

While a glance at quick form can never replace proper research on the form of the horses you are considering backing, some form indicators are more important than others. These include:

• B/BD or F: a horse that fell in its most recent race may have sustained an injury or damaged its confidence, which will affect how it performs in the race you’re betting on
• – or /: horses coming off breaks will frequently run strongly in their comeback race before performing poorly in the next one – this is known as the ‘bounce’
• 1-4: horses that won or placed in one or more recent races can be assumed to be in good form, and will have improved prospects in the race, all things being equal
• C, D or CD: a horse that has won over the course and/or distance for the race you’re betting on has effectively already proven themselves to some extent and deserves a closer look.

By the same token, you should avoid reading too much into form indicators that highlight poor performances in one to three recent races. These include:

• P/PU: a jockey may pull up a horse for any number of reasons that are not relevant to form, including, for example, as a precaution if injury is suspected
• 0: a horse that finishes outside the places can do so for any number of factors that may not affect its prospects in the race you’re betting on. These include course length, conditions or handicap that the horse is unsuited to, jockey errors, or a combination of these.

With the above in mind you should use quick form to scan a race card and identify two or three horses on the card who you think have a shot in the race. Once you have this information you can conduct more in-depth research into each horse.

This should include:

1. watching replays of recent races. Replays of races where the horse performed poorly allow you to see how the horse performed throughout the race and what errors were made. Races where the horse placed can indicate whether the horse lost pace towards the end of the race, or was catching up with the leader and may have won over a longer course.
2. taking the context of each race into account, including:
   1. the quality of the field the horse was up against
   2. the distance run over each race, and how this aligned with the horse’s preferences
   3. any handicaps carried in these races, and how these aligned with the horse’s preferences
   4. the ground condition for the race, and how this affected the horse’s performance.

If this sounds like too much hard work, you can rely on expert tipsters to assist you in making your picks. Our Naps page features winner predictions for today’s races from the leading horseracing experts in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

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