"How Do You Bet a Track Where the Inside Is Off?"

Recorded July 2025 for The Grind Ep 2: How I Recover After Losing Week. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

When a track changes during a meeting, the form you did before the first race does not stay worth what it was. It is not irrelevant, but it needs to be adjusted. That is the part of punting I want to keep getting better at. I adapt well to market moves and to new data coming in. Adapting mid-meeting, while the races are still running, is harder. And when the inside of a track is markedly off, it is the single most important thing you can do.

What Morphettville showed

Watch the field come around the turn on a day like that and you see horses spread right across the track. In one race there were something like fifteen horses fanned across the course, and the first two came down the outside. Solar Mist and Perfect Lights. Both drawn wide. As the day went on they got wider and wider.

The numbers backed up what the eye was telling you. Around 75 per cent of the winners came from the outside 75 per cent of the barriers. Seven out of nine races. In a field of ten, the inside 25 per cent is barriers one, two and maybe three. So if you threw the form out the window and simply circled the horses drawn wide, you would have had most of the winners. Morphettville was particularly bad that day and results do not always fall that way. There was a winner around race seven that got up on the inside, and that was a big run. It can happen. But 75 per cent is a huge number, and it tells you where to be looking.

The three filters

First, barriers. I want horses drawn in the outside half of the field. Not just the extreme outside, the outside 50 per cent. That is backed up with the data I have run.

Second, the run. You do not want on-pace horses. They are usually the ones that want the fence, and if the fence is off they have to go three, four, five off it, or in bad cases ten or eleven off it. That means running further. It is very hard to lead when you have to do that. Not impossible, but hard. So I want horses that will settle in the back half of the field, or at least not in the first four, get cover, and peel around them turning for home.

Third, the jockey. On a biased track the rider has to judge which part of the track to be on. That is not a simple decision when the field is fanned across the course. So I avoid inexperienced jockeys on days like that and back the ones who have been there before.

How to use it

When the inside is off, you do not need to pen the whole meeting again. Just go back over the fields and look for the horses that fit all three. Drawn in the outside half, likely to settle back, experienced jockey on. That is a much shorter list than the one you started with, and on a day where the fence is gone, it is the list worth your attention.

Every race on the card, rated, with Kingsley's selections and the speed maps behind them. Your first day is free, no card needed.

More from Kingsley

• Why Betting Against Top Weights Pays in Group Races
• "What Should I Do When My Punting Gets Out of Control?"
• Why Is a Horse $2 When the Ratings Don't Support It?

From the full video: The Grind Ep 2: How I Recover After Losing Week | Track Bias, Lays & Learning to Adjust

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