Racing and betting terms, in plain English

For every £1 you stake, a winner pays £4 profit and gives the £1 back, so £5 at 4/1 returns £25. The first number is the profit, the second the stake. Odds-on prices put the bigger number second: 1/4 pays 25p profit for each £1. As a decimal, 4/1 is 5.00 and 1/4 is 1.25.

The starting price (SP) is the official price at the moment the race starts, and it is the one price every result is settled at when no earlier price was taken. The best price is the biggest price any bookmaker is offering at a given moment before the race. They are often different: a horse can be 5/1 best price at noon and return 7/2 SP.

Add up the chance each runner's price implies and a fair book comes to exactly 100%. A real book comes to more — 110% to 140% is common depending on the field size — and the excess is the bookmaker's margin. It matters because any figure that compares wins with "what the market expected" is flattering the bookmaker unless the margin is taken out first, which is what Fair A/E does.

A steamer is a horse whose price has shortened sharply because money has come for it. It is a fact about the market, not a verdict on the result: a steamer is shorter than it was, and it wins or loses like any other horse. Kickthebookies shows each move with its size and the time it was recorded, and leaves the reading to you.

Two bets of equal stake: one on the horse to win, one on it to finish in the places. In a handicap with sixteen or more runners the standard terms pay four places at a quarter of the win odds, so £5 each-way (£10 in all) on a 12/1 horse that finishes third loses the £5 win part and returns £20 on the place part. Some bookmakers pay extra places on some races; the page for today's extra places lists them.

When a horse is withdrawn after you have taken a fixed price, the remaining runners' chances have improved, so winnings on earlier prices are reduced under the industry's Rule 4. The deduction is a set number of pence in the pound according to the price of the horse withdrawn: 5p for a horse that was around 10/1 to 14/1, rising through the scale to 90p for a horse at 1/9 or shorter; a withdrawal at bigger than 14/1 carries no deduction. Bets at starting price are not deducted.

A bet struck on the day of the race is on a declared runner, so if it does not run the bet is void and the stake returned. An ante-post bet is struck before the final declarations, at a bigger price, and the usual terms are that it stands whether or not the horse runs — the bigger price is the reward for taking that risk. Some firms offer "non-runner no bet" on particular races; the firm's own terms apply.

Two or more horses finishing exactly level for the same position. A winning bet on a dead-heated horse is paid at the full odds on a divided stake: with two in the dead heat, half the stake is settled as a winner and half as a loser, so £10 at 4/1 returns £25 rather than £50.

Ground with some give in it — slower than good, firmer than soft. The turf scale runs firm, good to firm, good, good to soft, soft, heavy; in Ireland the same point on the scale is called yielding. The softer the ground, the slower the race and the more it asks of a horse's stamina, which is why a horse's record is worth splitting by going.

Class 1 to 7 grades every race in Britain from the best to the lowest, and Class 4 is mid-grade. Group 1, 2 and 3 are the top tier of Flat racing, Group 1 the highest; Grade 1, 2 and 3 are the top tier over jumps. A Listed race sits just below Group or Graded class.

The same tier, on different codes. Group 1, 2 and 3 are the pattern races of Flat racing; Grade 1, 2 and 3 are the top races over hurdles and fences. In both, 1 is the highest, the races are run at set weights with penalties rather than as handicaps, and a win is a horse's best possible form line.

Course and distance: the horse has already won at today's course over today's distance. It is one of the oldest form pointers because tracks differ so much in shape, going and stiffness; a C&D winner has proved it handles this one. C alone means a win at the course over a different trip, D a win over the distance elsewhere.

The official rating (OR) is a horse's handicap mark in pounds, set by the official handicappers of the British Horseracing Authority in Britain and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board in Ireland, from its form. It fixes the weight the horse carries in a handicap: the higher the mark, the more weight. The mark goes up after a win or a good run and down after poor ones. Kickthebookies' own Rating is on the same scale but is not the official mark.

A maiden is a horse that has never won, or a race for such horses. A novice is a horse in its first season over hurdles or over fences, whether or not it has won in that time, or on the Flat a horse with no more than a set number of wins; a novice race is confined to them. A horse can be a novice hurdler and no longer a maiden the moment it wins one.

A handicapper running today off an official rating at or below the one it last won from. The horse has dropped back to a mark it has already won off, which is why the phrase is heard so often; whether it is as good a horse now is the question the form has to answer. Kickthebookies lists every such runner on the day's cards with its record.

N is the number of runs the figure was computed from, and "as at" is the moment it was true. Every number on Kickthebookies carries both, because a strike rate from 8 runs and one from 800 are different kinds of fact, and records change with every result.

Fair A/E compares how often the trainer's or jockey's runners actually won with how often the market, with the bookmaker's margin stripped out, implied they should have. 1.00 is exactly as expected; above 1.00 is more wins than the margin-free market expected. Samples full of favourites — the leading yards and riders — naturally read a few points above 1.00, so the figure is read beside its sample size, never on its own.

From its own results archive — racing in Great Britain, Ireland and France since 2005, with every starting price and overround stored. The Fit Score, KTB Rating, KTB Speed and Fair A/E are all computed from that archive and carry the number of runs they came from and the time they were true. None of them is copied from ratings published by others.