Hedging is one of the oldest, if not the most prominent horse betting strategy in the history of horse racing. Basically, it means that you place a normal or on-the-nose bet on the runner you desire; at the same time, you make additional wagers on two or more horses, just in case your runner falls short at the finish line. These additional wagers or hedge bets or so-called savers can come in different forms. It can be a bet on the same runner, but instead of an on-the-nose bet, it will be a to-place bet or an each way bet. This basically means that you are betting on your chosen runner to finish either 1st or 2nd place. The term in-the-money means you are placing a wager on your chosen horse when and if it lands on 1st, 2nd place or 3rd place.



Another type of hedging bet is to place savers on a horse or two “to-place," or simply subscribe wagers on the exacta box at the betting office or on an online betting exchange or with a bookie. You can also place savers on three other horses with an “in-the-money" type of wager, or an “each way" bet. Usually, hedge bets like these are considerably smaller in monetary units than the “normal" bets – this translates to less margin profits. This is because hedge bets are merely collaterals or guarantees that the bettor will not go home with just a losing ticket stub in his pocket.

However simple as this betting strategy sounds, placing hedge bets anywhere is actually a complicated process that even seasoned bettors still struggle with. Choosing a likely winner is difficult enough; handicapping the racing field to a couple of potential contenders is even more difficult. Seasoned bettors usually have worked out their own system to calculate the odds either stacked against or in favor of their chosen runners. One more disadvantage to hedge bets is that: like everything else in a race horsing event, this entails money – so unless you really have enough to place on one or more hedge bets, hedging is out of the question.

Some online betting arenas are offering a more simplistic solution to computing hedge bets. Although this software, known as the hedging bet calculator, is not totally fool-proof, there are a lot of Internet takers. The calculator is completely automated and is very easy to use. All a player has to do is to enter some pertinent data (i.e. player’s commission rate, stake money and odds used to back or lay the runner) and let the tool calculate a player’s potential net gain on the outcome of the race. Nonetheless, the difficult part of handicapping the playing field still rests on the player’s ability to narrow down runners in an event.