UK Sports Betting Tips Podcast

**James Dooley says**
So Joe, a jockey who’s in form and riding out of their skin. Is that something you look for when choosing a horse and tipping it?

**Joe Norris says**
I think the issue with this factor is that when a jockey rides a couple of winners at a meeting, they're often overbet on their next ride. We’ve seen cases like Frankie Dettori with the Magnificent Seven. It’s something I consider, but I tend to go against the grain because the value is usually elsewhere.

That said, there’s that old saying that a horse can hear a heartbeat from three feet away. So if a jockey has just ridden a couple of winners and is in the zone, I do believe that confidence can flow through the horse. Whether it actually makes the difference between winning or losing is another matter.

When I looked into the numbers, they say roughly 90 percent is the horse and 10 percent is the jockey. So you have to remember that too.

**James Dooley says**
Yeah, exactly. Some people think an in-form jockey will just magically find the gaps and everything falls into place, but sometimes they’ve just had a good day because they were riding better horses. Suddenly they’re labelled an in-form jockey but it might not even be the case.

**Joe Norris says**
That’s it. Confidence and relaxation play a big part. If a jockey is out of form they’re more likely to make bad decisions, misjudge the pace or take the wrong gaps. The more you think about it, the more important the factor becomes. But again, it comes back to price. You don’t want to overbet a horse just because the jockey is on for a treble. That rarely works out well.

**James Dooley says**
For sure. Like you said, it’s all about value in the betting market. If the seventh ride Frankie had that day was a 12 to 1 shot and it got smashed into 2 to 1 purely because punters wanted the “seven-timer”, that’s terrible value. Even though he won it, it still wasn’t the correct price.

**Joe Norris says**
Exactly. There was that famous bookmaker at Ascot who just kept laying Frankie’s rides because he knew the odds were wrong. Of course Frankie landed all seven and wiped him out, but that was a freak, once-in-a-lifetime scenario.

**James Dooley says**
Yeah, crazy example. In-form jockeys are definitely a factor, but not one of the biggest factors when tipping horses each day.