Form Temperature answers "is this yard hot or cold right now?" with one number. Small coloured pills appear next to trainer and jockey names on racecards (Ratings and At-a-Glance views) whenever their last two weeks have been genuinely unusual — in either direction.
How it works
- The trainer's (or jockey's) record over the 14 days before the race is compared with their own five-season strike rate — their personal benchmark.
- A statistical test (a binomial percentile, the same idea the Racing Post uses for its percentile scores) turns that comparison into a 0–100 score: how likely is a fortnight this good, or this quiet, by luck alone?
- 95 or higher means hot — a run of results that good comes up by chance less than 1 time in 20. 5 or lower means cold — the same on the quiet side.
- Scores between 25 and 75 are normal variance, so no pill is shown — the card stays clean unless something is genuinely worth noticing.
Reading the pills
| Pill | Score | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 98° | 95–100 | Hot — statistically significant purple patch |
| 82° | 75–94 | Warm — better fortnight than usual |
| 18° | 6–25 | Cool — quieter fortnight than usual |
| 3° | 0–5 | Cold — statistically significant quiet spell |
Hover any pill — or press and hold it on a phone — for the full story: the fortnight's record, the five-season benchmark, and the "1 time in N" luck odds.
Why it's a fair comparison
Being hot is relative. Two winners from six runners is a routine fortnight for a top yard but a serious heater for a small one — and 0 from 16 means nothing for a 5% yard yet is genuinely cold for a 15% one. Because every trainer and jockey is measured against their own benchmark, big and small operations compare fairly. A score only appears when there's a solid base to judge against (at least 50 runs in the benchmark and 3 in the fortnight).
What it is (and isn't)
Form Temperature measures how unusual the recent run of results is — it's a lens for reading form at a glance, not a betting system. Our own back-testing shows runners from hot yards do win more often than the yard's baseline suggests, but the market largely prices that in. Use it to spot the story (why is this yard hot — ground come right? A new stable jockey?), then dig with Form Expert or the System Builder.
Vulnerable favourites
When the favourite is shorter than 2/1 and its trainer or jockey is Cold (5° or below), the horse carries a FAV? pill. The price is the card's latest pre-race price (morning, else breakfast, else evening), and joint favourites are each checked. Hover or press and hold it to see which of the two is cold and their fortnight's record. It is a prompt to look again before you take a short price, not a lay signal.
Trainer trend
Beside the temperature, each trainer carries a small trend pill: how far the trainer's RaceMetrics Rating has moved over the last 14 days, as an arrow and a number of points (green ▲ rising, red ▼ falling, grey ▬ steady, within 4 points either way). Hover it, or press and hold on a phone, for the 28-day move and how many runs each covers. The rating rises when the yard's runners do better than their ratings expected and falls when they do worse, so the trend reads the yard's trajectory, not just its winners. There is no pill when the yard has had no runner in the fortnight. The two read differently: the temperature counts winners, while the trend takes in where every runner finished, so a yard can be running well before the winners come.
Past racecards
On results cards the score and the trainer trend are worked out as they stood on the day of the race, so you can review how hot a winning yard actually was at the time.
Every yard at once
The pills work one race at a time. Hot & Cold Trainers (Racecards menu) lists the day's hottest and coldest trainers across every meeting, with the runners each has that day.