Belter is a belter of a bet in the TABtouch Handicap over 1,200 metres
Information is king and knowledge is power so Perth Racing has partnered with Punting Form to assist punters wagering on the club's Ascot Racecourse races.
Punting Form race reports are a data-driven approach to understanding the relative strengths of each runner in an upcoming race. Using benchmark ratings, the reports feature the most recent performances of each competitor and their respective personal bests within the last two years, as well as a speed map indicating likely settle positions and computer-generated price assessments.
Benchmarking is the process of converting times into standardised figures that account for prevailing race conditions to provide a means of understanding the relative performance of any past run. The figures are expressed in lengths and the smaller (or more negative) the figure, the better (faster) the performance.
Speed map positions are based on the average historical settle position for each runner as a percentage of field size, while prices are derived from the Punting Form neural ratings, which take into account a range of 20 statistical factors.
According to the Punting Form race reports for Saturday's meeting at Ascot Racecourse, Belter is a belter of a bet in the TABtouch Handicap over 1,200 metres. Belter's two-year personal best performance occurred over Saturday's course and distance in February 2017 when the Sean Casey-trained grey gelding finished within 1.3 lengths of Salorsci and beat, among others, Gee Boss. Belter went a couple of lengths too fast in the first half of his last start two weeks ago but, from a kinder draw on Saturday, he maps as getting the run of the race under one of Western Australia's top apprentice jockeys, Tayla Stone. TABtouch has installed Belter as the TABtouch Handicap fixed odds favourite and rightly so.
You can download the Punting Form race reports for all eight Ascot Racecourse races on Saturday and they appear in the club's official racebook as well.