What Does BF Mean In Horse Racing?

I’ve been trying to teach some friends about horse racing recently as they’ve been interested in getting started.

Undoubtedly, one of the most confusing things about horse racing can be all the strange terminology and abbreviations.

One that kept coming up was BF, an abbreviation that we saw on boards and racecards many times.

A friend of mine wasn’t sure what it meant, so I decided to collate what I knew about them here.

So, what does BF mean in horse racing?

BF stands for beaten favorite and indicates that the horse in a race that was favorite to win was beaten. The favorite is the horse with the shortest odds and is decided before the day of racing begins by the bookies based on several factors.

Usually, once you break these terms down, they are quite straightforward and easy to understand.

A lot of the time, it’s a simple case of knowing the words in the abbreviation.

There are many of these in horse racing, so knowing all of them can only be done with experience, really.

In any case, let’s look further into this.

What does BF mean in horse racing?

As I said, BF stands for beaten favorite.

You will have a racecard which may be updated after a race to indicate that a favorite was beaten, and so if you see BF on your racecard or on the board, you know that this is what it means.

If you bet on that horse, then your horse was beaten.

Often, searching races for a BF can help you to pick a winner with longer odds.

If you find that a favorite horse has not been performing as well, then it could be a good bet that that horse will still have high odds on its other races, but may not actually stand a great chance of winning.

In this case, if you bet on a horse with much longer odds, then you stand a greater chance of winning and making a better winning while you do so.

Keeping track of any BFs is one of many good strategies you can use while at the races.

The same of course applies for online bookies, too.

Over the course of a day of racing they will indicate how horses have performed in other races, so look out for these terms in that case.

What is a favorite in horse racing?

The favorite is simply whichever horse has been given the best odds of winning.

Typically, odds are assigned in ranking order, giving a high spread of underperforming horses with long odds, middling horses with middling odds, and exceptional horses at short odds.

The horse that has the best chance of winning, according to the odds, is the favorite.

This means that they are a reasonably safe bet, but that the winnings would not be very high. Most punters do not bet on the favorites, but try to find races with a long odds horse that has a higher chance of winning.

So, who assigns these odds?

Who decides the favorites?

The odds are essentially decided by the bookies, as different bookies will give different odds.

However, they aren’t just completely made up.

Racing authorities will give each horse a rating at the end of each race, and this will be based on past performance.

Horses that perform better are often assigned a weight handicap to level the playing field.

Bookies use all this information to determine the odds, but at the end of the day they are running a business.

They assign odds based on how they believe they can profit the most.

BF just means that the horse that stood the best odds of winning did not win.

There are certainly far more complex terms out there; this one is relatively simple to understand.

For long term betting, though, it is important to understand what it means that a favorite horse has been beaten and did not win the race.

To stand the best chances of winning, you’ll need to follow horses throughout their careers and track their performance.

Knowing when a favorite has been beaten is one important part of this.