Horses to Avoid: Stable Changes, Imports and New Distances

Recorded September 2025 for This Is Where Most Punters Lose – Don’t Be One of Them. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

There are some horses I do not try to beat and some races I simply leave alone. Not because they cannot be worked out, but because what I am looking at is a question rather than an edge. Three profiles come up again and again for me: horses that change stables, overseas runners, and horses stepping up to a distance they have never attempted. Each one asks me to guess at something I cannot measure properly, and guessing is not betting.

Horses moving to a smaller stable

A change of stable is not in my data. I do it manually. I look at the betting fluctuations, and since I started doing more of that work by hand instead of running everything automated, a pattern has become hard to ignore. Horses that leave a major stable for a lesser or smaller one are often very easy in the market. Think of a horse going from a Kerr and O'Mara or a Waller or a Waterhouse up to Queensland country. On ratings they can look strong. The recent form might be poor, but the rating is high, and that combination makes them look appealing. Then they drift, and they do not run well. Maybe there is something wrong with the horse. I do not know. I just work off the data and the data says be careful.

Overseas runners are not horses to bet against

The other query is overseas horses, whether they have trialled here or not. If they are in the market, that is a signal in itself. We see it in the Melbourne Cup all the time, and we see it in the Cox Plate. Overseas horses come here and run really well. If you had been laying all of the overseas runners that come out here, on average you would be finishing in front of them. So they are not horses to bet against. And if you do not know them, the honest answer is that the race itself might be one to avoid.

Horses going to a new distance

The last profile is a horse going to a trip it has never run. Derbies and Oaks are the obvious ones. If a horse has only raced over 1600 metres and is going to 2400 metres for the first time, we are guessing. Sectionals can give you a reasonable idea, but with young horses stretching out for the first time it is still a query. In the country and provincials, where a horse is going to 1600 or 1800 metres for the first time, I find the market is very smart at factoring in improvement. That is a useful guide in itself. It also means there is not much left in it unless that is genuinely your skill and you are getting in early, because sometimes these horses are off the map and by the time you have made up your mind you have missed them.

None of this means these horses cannot win. It means I do not have an edge, so I move on. Mark them as queries, watch what the market does with them, and put your money in races where you can actually answer the question.

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More from Kingsley

• How to Find Reasons a Horse Will Improve
• Why a Jockey Rating Should Measure Profit, Not Ability
• Why Horses Travelling Interstate Can Show Misleading Time Ratings

From the full video: This Is Where Most Punters Lose – Don’t Be One of Them

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