Get to know trainers, their methods and what big races they target

Betting on Racing is an app-exclusive daily punting guide from three of the Racing Post's most renowned experts: Tom Segal, Paul Kealy and David Jennings. A new instalment will be published every weekday for the next three weeks.

There are so many races run in Britain and Ireland that the importance of the trainer and preparing a horse for a specific race is more often than not irrelevant. However, if you specialise in the best races then I'm a huge believer in the importance of a good preparation.

It takes me back to being a kid when I used to go to Crystal Palace to watch athletics meetings.

Seb Coe was one of my childhood heroes and I would go to Crystal Palace expecting him to win easily. Invariably, he would get beaten by someone infinitely worse at running than him. I would be devastated until I heard him speak afterwards when he said he was using the race as a warm-up for the major championships down the line. In horseracing that is exactly what the best trainers do.

For example, John Gosden is one of the best trainers of any generation and he very seldom goes into a big race without his horse having a prep run. The horse might not run up to their best in the trial but the key for Gosden is to have them peaking on the big day.

Similarly, we often see Willie Mullins- and Gordon Elliott-trained horses take a massive step forward from the Dublin Racing Festival when they run at the Cheltenham Festival. Appreciate It and Klassical Dream are good examples on that score in recent years and, while the DRF is still important to those trainers, Cheltenham is still where Mullins and Elliott want their horses to be at their best.

Willie Mullins: the top trainer's horses peak at CheltenhamCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

The key is getting to know your trainers and their methodology. For example, it seems that John Gosden likes his best two-year-olds to make their debuts at Sandown, William Haggas targets all the York handicaps every season and Henry de Bromhead tends to avoid the Dublin Racing Festival with his best novice hurdlers. If you have this knowledge in your armoury you can gauge just how highly a trainer rates a certain horse and therefore you can confidently expect them to be a lot better than they've shown in races that matter.

I often like to put myself in the mind of a trainer. Why did they run a horse there in the run-up to Cheltenham? Have they used that method previously and has it worked? Aidan O'Brien clearly prefers Chester to York with his Derby horses, for example. That might change in time, but as of now it's pretty clear the ones he thinks are the best don't run at York in May. O'Brien, who has a 41 per cent strike-rate on the Roodee, has won the Chester Vase ten times and the Dee Stakes on nine occasions. Punters take note.

In contrast, Charlie Appleby, who I consider to be the world's best trainer, has had only 31 runners at Chester, which is a handful more than he's had at Brighton and Redcar and less than on the turf at Lingfield and Thirsk. Considering Appleby has had big winners in Australia, America and France and elsewhere, this is surprising. He clearly doesn't like running horses at that track, particularly when you consider the prize-money on offer.

O'Brien's Chester record is an example of good information to remember – not only for the day, or for Epsom, but also for the whole season ahead.

Tomorrow: Paul Kealy's form study tips

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