UK Horse Racing Tips

Archive for the ‘Racing Tips’ Category

For those betting customers that love horse racing, there is a world of opportunities when it comes to the different bet types that are available. While many punters like to bet win singles on horses to win their respective races, there are a number of other options such as each-way, forecasts and accumulators.

A horse racing accumulator generally involves picking out selections that happen to be running that day. It could be horses that are all running at the same meeting or alternatively, bookies will also allow customers to pick out horses from races across various meetings providing that they are not in the same race.

As part of our betting service, we like to provide horse racing accumulator tips to readers and that could mean a racing four-fold or five-fold where have a number of horses put into a multiple bet. The odds of each runner are multiplied together and we’re left with a racing acca where we can nominate the stake we’re betting.

How to Place a Horse Racing Acca

Once you have read up on the horse racing accumulator tips, you can then visit your bookmaker website and start picking out the selections that you fancy. There’s no limit as to how many horses that you can choose and you can either opt to go for a win accumulator or an each-way racing accumulator depending on your outlook.

A horse racing win-only accumulator naturally means that you need all your selections to win their respective races. So if you do a racing acca with four horses, they all need to win in order to land a profit. However, if you do a racing each-way accumulator, then you are essentially placing two bets.

The first of these bets is a win-only acca but you split your stake so that 50% goes on to a place accumulator and a horse needs to simply finish in the first two, three, four or five depending on the each-way terms.

There is often the opportunity to cash out your horse racing acca along the way. If your first selection is a winner, then you can often be sitting on a profit before any more legs are run, while some betting customers exercise the option to partially cash out a profit and let some of the stake remain in the bet.

Josephine Gordon, who turns 27 in May, 2020, had ridden just one winner when she became apprenticed to Stan Moore, but rode her second winner in June, 2015 and by the end of that season had increased her winning tally to 16, including 9-81 for the Lambourn trainer. Thereafter, her riding career flourished, with the 2016 season yielding 87 winners in total, including 50 between April 30 and October 15, which was sufficient to make her champion apprentice. Indeed, she became just the third female jockey to win the apprentices’ title, after Amy Ryan in 2011 and Hayley Turner in 2005.

The following season, Gordon left Stan Moore to become stable jockey to Hugo Palmer in Newmarket and, initially, the move proved very fruitful indeed. Gordon rode her first Pattern race winner, Koropick, in the Chipchase Stakes at Newcastle for her new employer on July 1, 2017 and brought up a hundred winners for the season when partnering Thunderbolt Rocks, also trained by Palmer, to victory at Wolverhampton on November 25. In so doing, she became only the second female jockey, after Hayley Turner in 2008, to ride a hundred winners in a calendar year. She was on a winning streak of the like only seen by those winning on the best casinos online. All told, Gordon racked up 106 winners, including 33 for Palmer.

It would be fair to say that Josephine Gordon has found winners much more difficult to come by since the end of the 2017 season. Notwithstanding a hand injury that put her out of action for a month, she rode just 56 winners, including 24 for Hugo Palmer, which led to her relinquishing her role as stable jockey to ride freelance in 2019. That year, Gordon rode just 38 winners and in 2020, so far, she has yet to visit the winners’ enclosure; in fact, at the time of writing, she is enduring a ‘cold’ spell lasting 76 days and 54 rides.

In the wild, the horse is a prey animal, whose survival strategy is based on a fear response, a.k.a. ‘fight or flight’. As such, horses are blessed with keen hearing and a 275º field of vision, which allows them to see everything bar two ‘blind spots’, one directly in front and one directly behind. Remarkably acute senses may be essential to survival in the wild but, on the racecourse, can distract horses and prevent them from running to the best of their ability. To prevent, or at least minimise, such distractions, trainers often employ different types of headgear to help horses focus on the task in hand.

Blinkers

Blinkers consist of a cloth hood in which the eye openings are fitted with cowls, or cups, that limit the field of vision and encourage a horse to look forwards, rather than backwards or sideways. In addition to enjoying a wide, panoramic view, horses also have what is known as ‘monocular’ vision, which means that they can use each eye independently. Cutting off some, or all, vision to the rear forces horses that are otherwise reluctant to use their ‘binocular’ vision to do so and, hence, be less distracted or intimidated by what is going on around them. Some blinkers include a small hole or slit in the back or side of the cup, so that a horse can catch a glimpse of anything moving alongside or behind and respond accordingly.

Cheek Pieces

Unlike blinkers, hood and visors, which have had to be declared, overnight, by trainers for decades, cheekpieces, a.k.a. ‘French blinkers’, are a relatively recent development. Typically, they consist of two strips of sheepskin, or similar material, attached to the cheek pieces of the bridle. They work on the same principle as blinkers, but are less restrictive in terms of limiting the field of vision.

Visor

A visor is not dissimilar to blinkers, but may have only half-cups around the eyes and have a hole or slit cut in one or both of them, to permit a limited amount of peripheral and rear vision. A visor can sometimes be a useful alternative to blinkers on horses that have a tendency to start slowly.

Hood

A hood is a garment similar to blinkers, but includes ear covers rather than eye cowls, or cups, and does the same for hearing as blinkers do for vision. The purpose of a hood is to reduce extraneous noise, which can startle anxious or nervous horses.

Not without just cause is Steve Smith-Eccles’ autobiography entitled ‘Last of the Cavaliers’ but, while the former National Hunt jockey enjoyed and, to some extent, still enjoys, highlighting the hedonistic aspects of his life, he was, nonetheless, a highly accomplished horseman. He retired in 1994 after a 23-year career during which he rode 876 winners.

Smith-Eccles began his riding career with Newmarket trainer Harry Thomson ‘Tom’ Jones and, although he never rode as an amateur, was initially listed as ‘Mr. S. Smith-Eccles’ purely because of his double-barrelled surname. In any event, he rode his first winner, Ballysilly, in a novices’ hurdle at Market Rasen, early in the 1974/75 season, but it was his association with Jones’ stable star, Tingle Creek, that really brought him to the attention of the racing public. Deputising for stable jockey Ian Watkinson, Smith-Eccles won the Sandown Pattern Chase on his first ride on the spectacular steeplechaser in 1977, breaking the two-mile course record in the process, and won the same race on him again in 1978, breaking the course record again.

By that time, Smith-Eccles had already ridden the first of his eight winners at the Cheltenham Festival, Sweet Joe, trained by Jones, in the Sun Alliance Chase. It would be eight years before he rode another but, in 1985, he replaced the injured John Francome on See You Then, trained by Nicky Henderson, and steered the five-year-old to a comfortable, 7-length success. Two further victories, on First Bout, also trained by Henderson, in the Triumph Hurdle, and Kathies Lad, trained by Alan Jarvis, in the Grand Annual Chase, were enough to make Smith-Eccles leading jockey at the Festival that year.

John Francome retired from race riding in April, 1985, so Smith-Eccles retained the ride on the fragile, ill-tempered, but undeniably talented See You Then in the Champion Hurdle in 1986 and, again, won by 7 lengths. The following year, despite missing work and being distinctly ‘undercooked’, See You Then was still sent off 11/10 favourite to become the first horse since Persian War, in 1970, to win the Champion Hurdle three years running. Smith-Eccles had to work a little harder than in previous years but, while the aptly-named Flatterer briefly flattered to deceive on the run-in, See You Then never really looked like being beaten, eventually winning by 1½ lengths.