Narrowing the field using One Stop Ratings top 3 ranked OSR

In horse racing the term “narrowing the field” relates to reducing the number of horses you feel have a live change of winning a particular race.

To “narrow the field” simply means to limit the number of possibilities or options.

It’s generally a positive thing to do, but can have negative connotations if the method you use eliminates the winner from your calculations.

Concentrate on the Top 3 Ranked on OSR

This method concentrates on the top 3 ranked OSR can be used with both One Stop Ratings and One Stop Race Cards

Finding the Top 3 OSR using One Stop Ratings.

This is the easier method of finding the top 3 Ranked OSR, simply navigate to the latest ratings page

Latest Ratings (Ratings Members and Full Members)

• Horse Racing Ratings Saturday 7th May

Here is an example race

Finding the Top 3 OSR using One Stop Race Cards

Slightly more complicated, navigate to the latest race cards page

Latest Race Cards (All Members)

• Race Cards – Saturday 7th May

Here is the same example race, you need to double click on the OSR Column to sort that column highest to lowest.

Fri 6th May 2022
4.10 Market Rasen (11 runners)
Read The Richard Hannon Unibet Blog Handicap Chase
Class 5, 2m6f , Good, 5yo+, Win: £3268

Our shortlist for the race would be the top 3 ranked on OSR which are Le Tueur (IRE), Seemingly So (IRE) and Izzys Champion (IRE).

Using the ratings method you can also see where the horse ranked on the other criteria: LR (Last Race), HS (Horse Score), SR (Speed Ratings) and forecast odds.

Using Race Cards has its advantages too as you can view at a glance recent form, days since last run, horses age, allocated weight, headgear, jockey, trainer, stall (flat only), miles travelled, official rating (OR), forecast odds, whether a horse has won at the course or distance or both previously the final column (S) is the number of runs in the current season.

Once you have your shortlist of 3 you may want to get it down to one horse to have a bet on, how you do this is up to you.

Some methods you could use are:

• Pick the one with the shortest forecast odds
• Pick the one with the highest forecast odds
• Choose the one with the highest LR (Last Race) rating.
• Choose the one with the highest HS (Horse Score)
• Choose the one with the highest SR (Speed Rating)
• Delve into the form for each horse on a website such as the Racing Post who let you drill down the form for each runner.

You could even Dutch all 3 horses.

Or maybe you could consider forecasts and tricasts.

Personally I nip over to the Racing Post website and drill down the form and make an informed decision which of the three I think has the best chance taking into consideration the conditions of the race, the distance, going etc. I don’t always have a bet and sometime I may back more than one.

How well does this method of narrowing the field perform?

It preforms pretty well generally.

Going through the results for Saturday 27^th November 2021 https://www.onestopracing.co.uk/one-stop-ratings-saturday-27th-november/

14 winners had Top OSR

6 winners were second on OSR

6 winners were third on OSR

9 winners were fourth or worse on OSR

So on this day a pretty healthy 26 winners from 35 races were in the Top 3 on OSR and this doesn’t take into account NED races (not enough data).

Here is a break down of winners using OSR

All Races – using the last 750 races matching the criteria as of 05/05/22*

In total 467 (62%) winners came from the Top 3 Ranked on OSR

All Non Handicaps – using the last 750 races matching the criteria as of 05/05/22*

In total a healthy 514 (69%) winners of non-handicap races came from the Top 3 Ranked on OSR

All Handicaps – using the last 750 races matching the criteria as of 05/05/22*

In total 422 (56%) handicap winners came from the Top 3 Ranked on OSR

*It is important that you understand that a 750-race sample over a different time period will not give exactly the same results.

Food for thought

You may decide that 3 is not your magic number when it comes to narrowing the field using OSR you might prefer to use the top 4 or 5, or even not to bother using this method, whatever you decide it is entirely up to you.

This is not only way of narrowing the field using One Stop Ratings it may not even be the best ways. If you find a new and better way please tell us about it.

A final note

All ratings pages are generally updated with results on the day after racing they are also opened up at this stage so that all users of One Stop Racing can view them regardless of whether they are logged in or not.

This will help you to back test strategies and hopefully develop your own.

On the subject of your own strategies please share any that you develop, and they will likely end up on an article like this one.

If you want to share a strategy or have any questions feel free to contact us.

This article was written for members of One Stop Racing.

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