Now that we have all our horses assigned speed figures, we now have to work out how the race is going to pan out. To do this we will have to work out which horses are going to either make, or be up with the pace, and which horses are going to be held up in the rear. The best way of doing this is to assign speed points to each horse. The higher the points a horse is awarded, the more likely a horse is to take up or contest the early pace. Horses which are priced at 10/1 or less and able to get an early lead by two furlongs out, are among the best bets in flat races. These horses win almost three times their rightful share of races. In order to work out speed points, I would recommend you watch a horses last three races on either Attheraces or on UK Racing, which you can find in the form section of the Racing Post. Alternatively you can look at the race comments supplied in the race results section of the Racing Post.

You would award points in the following way:

Four points for any race in which the horse led before halfway
Two Points for any race in which the horse disputed the lead before half way
One Point for any race in which the horse was prominent before halfway

Now that we have our speed points awarded, we can clearly see what type of pace is going to be in the race. If two or more horses have high early speed, the pace is likely to be fast. If all horses in the field are rated five or below, this means the pace will be relatively slow. Now that we have a good idea if the pace is going to be fast, normal or slow, we can use this information to further our quest to find winners We will first look at a race which will be run at a fast pace. Many of the highly rated horses are need-to-lead horses, and because there are two or more horses with fast early pace, there will most likely be a duel for the lead. This will result in a very fast early pace being set. The problem here is if a horse exerts himself too much in the first two furlongs of a flat race, they will use up most of their reserve energy and won’t last home. Horses that get involved in a speed duel like this are probably the worst bets you could find in horse racing.when presented with a scenario like this, we are in a very good position. Armed with our overall speed figures and early pace speed points for each horse, we are most of the way there to finding our eventual winner. What you would do from here, is to take your top four speed figures and put a line through the ones with the fast early pace. If you are lucky, you will have only one horse left. If you have more than one horse, then we go back and look at the comments of our shortlist horses. The key consideration here is to look for a horse that gets into good position about two or tree furlongs from home, this is called a striking position, where the horse is ready to take advantage of the tiring early speedballs.The next scenario we will look at is where there will be a normal pace set for the race. This is where we have only one horse that is likely to dictate the pace, and is one of the best scenarios to benefit the punter. This horse will be happy to take the lead, and once there will only run at a normal pace. What we are looking for in this horse is to be one of our top two speed figure horses and have a favorable draw. The reason this horse is such a good betting proposition is because as well as taking the lead, he will run the race at a pace that suits him best. Because he is one of our top two speed horses he will be hard to catch when he decides to make his run for home. Horses that normally come from off the pace are best suited to a race run at above normal racing pace. This is because the slower they are traveling the longer it takes them to accelerate up to full racing speed. By the time these off the pace horses get up to full speed the front runner has made his move and gone about two to three lengths clear with plenty left in the tank.
The last scenario is where there is no pace in a race. This type of race is very unpredictable and best left alone. If you insist on playing this type of race, the best guides would be a combination of the betting forecast and race trends.