A numbers game: how to use Racing Post Ratings to improve your betting

The most important factor that affects a horse's chance of winning is its raw ability. Not the most controversial sentence you'll ever read but an inescapable racing truth.

It follows, then, that to try to make racing pay we need to quantify each horse's ability.

Most of us will be able to recall school sports day, where a wide range of abilities were on show. No matter how snazzy the trainers, or how isotonic the fluid intake, it was obvious who was going home with the medals. Solving the racing puzzle is a little more complex.