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‘BF’ is an abbreviation that appears on some, but not all, racecards and stands for ‘Beaten Favourite’. Where present, it usually appears immediately to the right of name of the horse in question – possibly alongside other abbreviations, such as ‘C’, for ‘Course’, and ‘D’, for ‘Distance’ – and simply indicates that it was officially sent off favourite, at starting price, on its most recent outing, but failed to win.

Starting price reflects the odds offered by bookmakers at the ‘off’ of each race and the starting price favourite is the horse available at the shortest odds. Those odds are typically determined by the previous form of the horse and that of its rivals – in other words, the perceived competitiveness, or strength in depth, of the race in the eyes of bookmakers – and the actual amount of money bet on said horse.

In Britain, across the main discplines of horse racing, that is, Flat and National Hunt, regardless of class, distance, going or anything, approximately 35% of starting price favourites win. Thus, 65% do not win and are denoted as beaten favoruites on their next outing. Notable recent examples of beaten favourites include Doom, trained by William Haggas, who was turned over at odds of 1/25 in a match at Ripon in September 2023 and Tree Of Liberty, trained by Kerry Lee, who equalled the record for the shortest-priced loser in British National Hunt history when beaten at odds of 1/20 in a three-runner novices’ chase at Ludlow in March 2022.

The history of horse racing is awash with tales of lucky punters who have won hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of pounds for relatively modest stakes. However, at the other end of the scale, there have been a few high rollers, or whales, as they are also known in casino parlance, for whom staking (and sometimes losing) six or seven figure sums was nothing unusual.

The late Kerry Packer, the Australian media tycoon famous for founding World Series Cricket in the late seventies, was an inveterate gambler, who had his fair share of ups and downs. In 1987, Packer co-owned Major Drive, the winner of the Sydney Cup at Randwick Racecourse, but nonetheless conspired to lose a reported A$7 million on the hot favourite for that race, Myocard, who eventually finished second.

A decade later, though, the boot was on the other foot. In 1997, Packer reportedly staked nearly A$1.5 million on the Melbourne Cup winner, Might And Power, thereby sharing in excess of A$6 million with his friend, property developer Lloyd Williams. Lo and behold, the pair were back again in 1998, winning an estimated A$10 million on Jezabeel.

More recently and closer to home, ‘Fearless’ Freddie Williams laid his nemesis, Irish billionaire John Patrick ‘J.P.’ McManus, a bet of £600,000/£100,000 about Reveillez, the winner of the Jewson Novices’ Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2006. As recently as 2023, as reported in ‘The Sun’, Star Sports laid an unnamed punter bet of £83,636/£230,000 about Constitution Hill in the Champion Hurdle, also at the Cheltenham Festival.

The simplest and arguably the most common type of bet placed on horse racing is a straight win bet, or win single. As the name suggests, a win single is a bet on just one horse, which must win to produce a return.

However, for punters who enjoy betting at long odds and/or in large fields, each-way and place bets may provide a ‘safety net’ in the event that a selection runs well, but not quite well enough to win.

A each-way, or win and place, bet is, as the name suggests, a two-part bet, or two bets in one. The first bet is a win bet and the second bet is a place bet, which produces a return if a selection finishes second, third or fourth, depending on the number of runners in the race. Indeed, in some of the major handicaps of the season, the Grand National being the prime example, some bookmakers may offer enhanced place terms and pay out on horses that finish fifth, sixth, seventh or further down the field. Of course, being effectively two bets, an each-way bet costs double the stake of a straight win bet.

Unlike an each-way bet, a place, or place only, bet is a straight single bet on a selection to finish in the first two, three or four, depending on the number of runners. Place betting odds are a fraction of the win odds, though, so can produce a disappointing outcome is a selection does actually prove good enough to win.

When it comes to betting on horse racing, you can do so online or in person, in a High Street betting shop or on a racecourse. Placing a bet online essentially involves opening account with the bookmaker of your choice, depositing funds, making your selection(s), entering an appropriate stake or stakes and confirming your bet. Placing a bet in a High Street betting shop is exactly the same, fundamentally, but rather than filling in an on-screen betting slip you need to fill in a physical slip and hand it over the counter to the cashier along with your stake money.

On a racecourse, you once again have the choice of an on-course betting shop, which works in exactly the same way as the High Street equivalent, a traditional bookmaker, in the betting ring, or the Tote. A Tote bet is what is known as a pool bet, insofar as all the money staked on a particular market, say, the win market, is pooled together and, after a deduction, is shared among the winning tickets in that market. The downside of Tote betting is that you do not know at what odds your bet will be settled until the winning dividend is declared.

A traditional bookmaker, on the other hand, will display the odds on offer on a board, so you can see what price you are taking at the time you place the bet. In either case, it is simply a question of making your selection, deciding what sort of bet you wish to place, to what stake, and convey this information to the Tote cashier or bookmaker. In return for your stake money, you will receive a ticket containing the details of your bet, which you should retain until after the ‘weighed in’ signal.