Horse Racing Guides

All your racing know-how

Whether you’re placing your first bet or looking to sharpen the approach that’s been funding your Friday afternoons, you’re in the right place. These guides cut through the noise and give you practical, honest advice on how to bet smarter on Australian horse racing.

We’ve organised everything into three sections. Start wherever makes sense for where you’re at.

Getting started

New to horse racing? This is your starting point. These guides cover the basics: how to read a form guide, what the terminology means, and how the different bet types work. No jargon, no assumptions — just the foundation you need to follow the races with confidence.

Explore getting started guides
  • Why punters lose, and what winners do differently

  • So you want to be a professional punter?

  • How to price up a horse race like a bookmaker

  • Six keys to punting success

Betting Strategy

Knowing the basics is one thing. Having a strategy is what separates punters who last from those who don't. These guides get into the mechanics of value betting, why most punters lose money (and what to do differently), and how to think about price like a professional

Explore betting strategy guides

Staking and money management

You can pick winners and still lose money if your staking is off. This section is about protecting your bank, sizing your bets correctly and building the kind of discipline that keeps you in the game long-term.

Explore staking and money management guides
  • How to trade horse racing on Betfair

  • The plateau a free horse race staking plan

  • How to spot a vulnerable horse racing favourite

How to use these guides

These aren’t articles written to fill a page. Each guide is based on how serious punters actually approach the game, drawn from years of watching what works and what doesn’t in Australian racing.

A few suggestions on where to begin:

Want tips on today’s races? Head to our free racing tips.

Mike

Mike Keenan

Founder

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FAQs

Find answers to common questions about horse tipping and our services.

Where can I see past results?

You can review results on our Results page, where selections are tracked once races are run.

Do you guarantee winners?

No. Horse racing always involves risk. Our tips are designed to be followed over time, not treated as one-off bets.

Can I trust these tips?

No one wins every day. We track results, stay transparent, and only tip what we’d back ourselves.

How do I pick more winners?

Our ratings system is based on identifying the best horse in each race, under the assumption that each horse will have a “fair” chance of winning. But occasionally we face circumstances we don’t expect including changing weather conditions (rain or wind), a biased track, jockey changes, unfavourable race maps or even scratchings.

To better identify which races to bet on and pick more winners, we suggest:

1)  Make sure track conditions suit the horse you are looking at betting on;

2)  Avoid (or adjust) your betting to account for biased tracks or changing weather conditions;

3)  Consider the race map and if it suits your horses racing style

4)  Be confident that the barrier draw benefits your horse

What you are looking for is the above factors to benefit your horse – this is Step 1.

Step 2 is to consider how these factors impact the other horses in the race. To get the biggest betting edge each time you bet, you want to be betting on horses that the conditions advantage more than its competitors (or even better, conditions disadvantage the other horses).

Even if it is the best horse in the race, if you’re not confident that your horse doesn’t have the advantage, don’t force a bet. Only betting in circumstances that are in your favour is the key to making a profit over the long term.

How do I use the Best Bets?

The Best Bets are a “higher risk, higher return” strategy that leans towards exotics and has a bit of fun with some multi bets.

Over time, our Best Bets have a relatively equal spread of small winners and small losses, but the majority of our betting profits are generated by the occasional monster pay-out only exotics can give you. As a punter, there is nothing like the feeling of landing a quaddie paying 50x your investment or landing a 10 leg multi.

Due to the higher risk associated with these bets, these bets may not suit everyone, but for those that can handle volatility, these bets will deliver the occasional massive account “fill”.

We always suggest that you only bet using bet types you understand, so if you are new to a type of bet (i.e. exotics), please do your research before jumping into your first Banker Exacta or Quaddie without knowing what you need to win with these types of bets and how the dividend is calculated.

How do I use the ratings?

The Horse Racing Tips Australia ratings is a flexible ratings system that can be enjoyed by casual punters having a day at the pub to professional punters looking to save time and improve their form analysis.

We are not in the business of changing how you bet, we just want to help you be better at it. What we recommend is that you continue to bet how you would normally bet, using our horse and race ratings system to improve your win rates.

If you like having a swing on win bets, our high win strike rate is going to point you towards more winners. If you’re an each way player – go for it! If you’re chasing that huge exotic or quaddie pay day, we’ve got you covered with four selections for each race. Like Dutch betting to jag consistent low-risk returns, our strike rates across the four selections will help you grind those profits. Whatever your betting strategy, our ratings are there to help you pick more winners.

How do the ratings work?

Our ratings have proved successful since we started providing the service in 2014. We focus on one simple principle, identifying the best horse in each race. Given a fair chance, the best horse should win.

The output of our ratings methodology is a relative rating of all the horses in each race, with the highest rating horse published as our top selection, the second highest rating horse being the second selection and so on for the four selections given.

Our top selection is the most successful of our four selections (as expected!) winning at a strike rate of approx. 30% across all races and tracks. We offer four selections for each race as we know many of our Premium Members pursue a variety of punting strategies including Dutch betting, exotics, value bets or each way bets. These other selections have consistently high strike rates with one of our four selections winning at a rate approaching 80%, highlighted by the second selection winning approx. 20% of the time.

In addition to rating the horses within a race, we rate each race based on the assessed probability that our selections will win using a simple three-tier race rating:

Specials (*) – The top selection is the clear highest rating horse and should win. On average, Specials win at a rate over 50%.

Probable (P) – The winner is expected to come from our four selections. Races designated as “P” on average have a win rate 5 percentage points higher than the average across all races.

Open (O) – All horses within the race have relatively similar ratings. Open races have a lower strike rate but frequently have higher priced winners.

Still have questions?

See more FAQs, or contact us directly.