Race selection can be just as important as horse selection in the world of horse betting online. That’s because horse races vary in levels of competitiveness, and picking winners in one type of race can be five or even ten times easier than picking winners in another type of race.

Consider your prospects of picking a winning horse from a field of 18 runners that will be taking place in a handicap and your chances of doing the same from a field of 6 runners in a non-handicap. Assuming for a moment that all of the runners had equal ability, your chances of picking the winner in the 18 runner race would be 5.5%. Your chances of picking the winner in the 6 runner race would be 16.67%. This one variable could therefore improve your horse betting online performance quite considerably, and that’s just on one occasion. If you give race selection some thought every time you set about the task of picking winners, the cumulative difference that this one simple habit could have on your overall profitability could be enormous.

There are many different types of horse race that we could define and discuss, but the good news is that we don’t have to. Instead, all we have to do is present a few simple rules that you can observe if you want to make the task of picking winning horses as easy as it possibly can be. The rules we are referring to are as follows:

Focus on Non-Handicaps
Handicap races give all runners the same theoretical chance of winning by making the horses with the best racing form carry more weight than the horses with inferior form. This makes picking winners a lot more complicated, so the first rule is to focus on non-handicaps where horses are not penalised for their past successes.

Focus on Small Fields
The fewer runners there are in a horse race, the more chance you have of correctly picking the winner. It therefore makes sense to focus on small fields. For example, you could choose to focus on races that have 5 to 12 runners and be very careful about betting on races with 13 or more runners.

Focus on Previous Winners
Although not all horses that won their most recent races will win next time out, if you focus on previous winners you will immediately enjoy an impressive winning strike rate. You should of course feel free to bet on horses that finished second or third last time out, but concentrating on those horses that won last time out is always sound advice.

Focus on Modest Odds
The odds available from bookmakers about horses reflect their perceived chances of winning, so if you concentrate on big odds you’re likely to find far fewer winners than if you focus on horses that are offered at modest odds such as those in the range 1/2 to 5/2.

Following any one of these rules will be useful, but following all of them can really help you to pick a slew of winners. It therefore makes sense to look for previous winners at modest odds in small-field non-handicap races if you want to make the most of your horse betting online activities.