To make money out of your betting, you have to do your research and the best way to do that is to get yourself a good horse racing form guide. The layout of Australian horse racing form guides will vary, but they all offer the same important details. A comprehensive form guide will feature details about a horse's win-loss record, its career prize money, ability on different tracks, and on various types of going. Some advanced form guides will also give you the option to view all of a horse’s races, including video replays, making it possible for you to build up a thorough understanding of a horse’s strengths and weaknesses.
These days, Aussie punters expect more from their horse racing betting tips than gossip or speculation. Modern horse racing betting tips bring together detailed technological analysis and the expertise of the professional horse watcher to offer high quality advice. Punters looking for horse racing betting tips have a range of paid or free tips to choose from. There are tipping services specialising in every aspect of racing, from racing form and trends to speed and pace figures, all offering the possibility of additional insight, helping punters to boost their horse racing betting.
In the early years of horse racing news, race fans depended on inconsistent newspaper coverage to get their news, but nowadays, punters can call on a variety of horse racing news sources. All of the popular racing papers are online, along with hundreds of racing news sites, outlets and blogs. Many of the major trainers also have their own sites, and these can provide useful information, while a number of Aussie and international bookmakers offer a full racing news service, including injury updates, race videos, interviews and analysis of important developments. The horse racing punter has never had it better!
In the old days, Aussie punters had to wait to find out the full horse racing results in the newspaper or tune into their radios. But now you can catch the latest horse racing results as soon as the race has finished, via news sites and online bookmakers. Horse racing results come in varying formats, but usually include the same vital information such as the time of the race, the going conditions, prize money awarded, the distance beaten for each horse, barrier position, weight and starting price. Some results services also display the Tote dividends.
The Melbourne Cup is without doubt Australia’s most important horse race. It was first run in 1861, and is a fiercely contested 3,200 metre race staged at Flemington Racecourse on the first Tuesday of each November. One of the richest turf races in the world, it attracts a global audience of race fans keen to find out the Melbourne Cup results and the Melbourne Cup field usually includes some of the world’s top horses. Ahead of the race itself, all major racing sites will publish Melbourne Cup betting tips and Melbourne Cup odds are examined and debated by racing fans from Hong Kong to Kentucky.
There are over 400 horse racing racecourses spread throughout Australia. These courses are known as Metropolitan, Provincial or Country. Metropolitan tracks stage the main Group races and usually provide the highest class of racing. Provincial racecourses are mostly to be found outside the major cities and they hold some Provincial Cup races that are of Group or Listed standard, while Country tracks offer lower quality contests and are generally not covered by the TAB or off-course bookmakers. The most important Australian racecourse is Flemington in Melbourne, Victoria, which stages the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
No other sports demand the degree of determination and endurance that horse racing requires of its jockeys. Only the very toughest sports person is able to stick to the strict diet and exercise regimen needed to be a professional jockey, and some of Australia’s jockeys have become world wide legends. It was men like Tot Flood and James Barden who pioneered the crouching riding style in the late 1800s, and that method was soon adopted by jockeys in every country. Now great modern jockeys like Blake Shinn, Damien Oliver and Glen Boss are carrying the flag for Australian riding professionalism.
Australia has been home to some of the world’s most successful horse racing trainers. Maybe the most famous is Tommy J Smith, the man who ruled Australian racing for three decades, winning a staggering 282 Group Races. Bart Cummings, who claimed the Melbourne Cup twelve times, is another Aussie training legend, together with Colin Hayes, whose Barossa Valley training site turned out champions such as Almaraad, Beldale Ball and Unaware. Wel known modern trainers like John O’Shea, Chris Waller, Darren Weir and Gai Waterhouse uphold the proud traditions of Australian horse racing training, sending out exceptional runners to fight for some of racing’s top prizes season after season.
Horses first arrived in Australia in 1788 and over the last two centuries, Australian thoroughbreds have numbered among the world’s most successful race horses. The first star of Australian racing was Malua, the versatile horse foaled in 1879 who won both classic flat races and the VRC Grand National Hurdle. Tulloch, who won at distances between 1,000 metres and 3,200 metres was another Aussie equine star, as were the triple Cox Plate winner Kingston Town, and Australia’s famous Wonder Horse, the irreplaceable Phar Lap, who ruled the roost in Australian horse racing from 1928 to 1932.