To make a profit from your betting, you have to know your form and the best way to get that knowledge is to study a good horse racing form guide. The design of Australian horse racing form guides may vary, but they all offer the same important information. A comprehensive form guide will include details about a horse's and place record, its career earnings, ability on different tracks, and record on different types of going. Some sophisticated form guides will also enable you to study all of a horse’s races, with video replay making it easier for you to build up an in-depth knowledge of a horse’s ability and current form.
These days, Aussie punters look for more from their horse racing betting tips than rumour speculation. Modern horse racing betting tips are derived from detailed technological analysis combined with the expertise of the professional race watcher to produce high quality advice. Punters seeking horse racing betting tips can choose from a huge variety of paid or free tips online. There are tipping services that specialise in every aspect of the sport, from racing form and trends to the latest speed and pace figures, and all can offer extra insight, helping punters to increase their winning chances.
In the pre-internet era, punters relied on inconsistent newspaper coverage to get their news, but these days, they can call on a huge selection of horse racing news sources. All of the popular racing papers have an online presence, along with hundreds of racing news sites, blogs and outlets. Many of the major trainers also regularly update their training sites, and these can offer useful information, while many Aussie and international bookmakers provide a full racing news service that will keep punters up to date with injuries, race videos, jockey and trainer interviews and analysis of important industry developments.
The days when Aussie punters had to wait to read the full horse racing results in their daily newspaper are long gone! The modern Aussie punter can find out the latest horse racing results within seconds of the finish, by accessing news sites, social media and online bookmakers. Horse racing results are published in a number of different formats, but usually include the same important information including the time of the race, the official going, prize money awarded, distance beaten for every horse, barrier position, weight carried and starting price, while some services also report the Tote dividends.
The Melbourne Cup is Australia’s most significant horse race. It was first staged in 1861, and is a hotly contested 3,200 metre contest held at Flemington Racecourse on the first Tuesday of every November. One of the most lucrative turf races in the world, it draws a global audience of race fans eager to find out the Melbourne Cup results and the Melbourne Cup field will usually feature many of the world’s top staying horses. In the build-up to the race itself, all the main Aussie racing sites will display Melbourne Cup betting tips and Melbourne Cup odds are closely studied by punters around the world.
There are more than 400 horse racing racecourses across Australia. These courses are categorised as Metropolitan, Provincial or Country. Metropolitan tracks host the major Group races and will provide the best in racing action. Provincial racecourses can mostly be found outside the major cities although they do stage Provincial Cup races that are classed as Group or Listed standard, while Country tracks host lower quality contests and as a rule are not covered by mainstream bookmakers or the TAB. The most famous Australian racecourse is Flemington in Melbourne, Victoria; home of the annual Melbourne Cup Carnival.
Few others sports demand the level of determination and endurance that horse racing requires of its riders. Only the very toughest individuals are able to adhere to the strict diet and exercise program that is the lot of the modern professional jockey. Some of Australia’s most successful jockeys have become legends around the world; men such as Tot Flood and James Barden, who, in the late 1800s, developed the crouching riding method that is now standard around the world. Great modern riders like Blake Shinn, Damien Oliver and Glen Boss continue to uphold the traditions of Australian jockey professionalism.
Australia has produced many of the world’s most successful horse racing trainers. Perhaps the most famous is the great Tommy J Smith, the man who was the kind of Australian racing for three decades, claiming an amazing 282 Group Races. Bart Cummings, who won the Melbourne Cup twelve times, is another Aussie training legend, along with Colin Hayes, whose Barossa Valley training facility produced champions like Almaraad, Beldale Ball and Unaware. Famous modern trainers like John O’Shea, Chris Waller, Darren Weir and Gai Waterhouse continue to fly the flag for Australian horse racing training, saddling exceptional runners to compete in some of racing’s top contests year after year.
Horses were first brought to Australia in 1788 and in the centuries since, Australian thoroughbreds have been among the world’s most successful and loved race horses. The first star of Aussie racing was Malua, foaled in 1879, who was versatile enough to win both classic flat races and the VRC Grand National Hurdle. Tulloch, who held three speed records, and won at distances from 1,000 metres to 3,200 metres was another Aussie equine star, along with three-time Cox Plate winner Kingston Town, and Australia’s own Wonder Horse, the great Phar Lap, who dominated Aussie racing in the late 1920s and early 1930s.