Have to agree with your comments about field sizes as well Crash.

In Melbourne we don't get that many metro tracks that are heavy these days.

Think the greatest danger with wet tracks is when they occur during the middle of a dry patch [summer which has happened] as you're generally faced with a group of horses that have no recent exposure. Form can become guesswork.

Generally I'd say wet tracks don't have to stop you betting, although it depends on your own form factors.

I'd say fitness becomes an added factor to consider. Have to be careful about backing horses first/second up.

Tempo of a race can become an added factor, especially where you have one clear leader in a race, where it can be hard to make ground and run down the leader.

Fully agree Steve M, IMHO this is why people dislike wet tracks, as it's hard for them to adjust their approach.

Crash your right Stats are stats, but they are presented to assist others to think about their own approach. Maybe Wet tracks aren't the mine field some think.

That is all...

In the real world your figures are absolutely meaningless Stix [what does 'wet' mean and please supply source of your stats].

Naturally your stats look appropriately even. Take a position [heavy tracks produce as many winners re: !st. 2nd. 3rd fav. as good tracks] and wack up stats that suit from the either.

No minefield at all Stix. Zoe got a $45 winner yesterday [heavy] and I got 4 out of 5 winners last Sat. on wet tracks. All I'm saying is that wet tracks do not equal easy wins. Given equal numbers of runners in race, give me a good track anyday.

Agreed, no such thinga as an easy win...agree Good Tracks are more welcomed than wet.

As my 1st post. The thread caught my eye.
Fav data is always subjective, they around win 30% all the time, that's even before we had computers......on an average of 11 starters, & you can give or take a starter.
If you find a niche where this up or down, you'll find that your average price has now lowered or gotten higher.....wet tracks have slightly smaller fields, thus price will be shorter, strike rate higher.
The sample submitted was Heavy metro, less than 2000 races, i got to say, it's hardly a sample, but then again, Waw .. it looks to be about 10 years of data.
Normally there are about 1500 races a month, & over a 1000 the TAB handles. think about it, 2000 races in 10 years, equates to 200 a year, 4 a races week... & metro races are less than even 25% of racing. and i am sure those dead tracks at carnival time was really slow ... :)
Such small data on the overall scheme means a very little..specially using favs, as these are after the fact. My $3.20, became 2.80, after they jumped. or v.v

Try the top prize money earner, the most consistent(win and/or place) strike rate up or down?, do horses with a win % of between 15-25%, do better on wet?

Also, think about metro tracks, best horses, best trainers... trainer thinks, i can scratch him, i already have him entered on Wednesday at Canterbury.
AT Lismore , Swan Hill or Coulandra , the trainer with only 4 horses often can't afford to scratch.

At a home track, or more so, if your a large trainer, you can afford to scratch, try traveling from whoop whoop to the city ,only to be caught in a flash storm, , what was good is now slow. i have 2 of my 4 horses with me, and the farrier and vet are expecting their accounts settled at the end of the month. - small samples are filled with such data

In the end, the most knowledge i took out of wet tracks, was noting the scratched horses on wet track raceday, why were they scratched? how did they perform when they eventually hit a wet track?

& its a luxery now, in the early 90's i was discovering on 386's. armed with a tiny 40m HD's a handful of disks and alarm clock, the computers cooked all night.

Hopefully I moved the dart board a bit.:)

Hi Ya Maurice,
Here,s a thought .

Bet any in the top 4 at $5 +

Cheers.
darky

Very cool, very sound and very real.

I have had a rethink based on a bit of research of my own figures. From my database - although not as big as some boast here - the value goes right out of wet tracks for me.

So what if the stats show the same number of favorites winning. Post after post after post here says the favorites are poison to long term profit: the tote squeezes the goodness out of their price. Maybe moreso on wet days. My results show it.

You can't look at the ratio of faves getting up in the wet to justify betting on soggy tracks. Unless you are making a profit on backing faves. And nobody here is. The over-riding philosophy here seems to be looking for false favorites.

My selection process makes more money out of dry tracks. I usually stay away from wet tracks. But I have selected one or two good winners over the last season. I think I have just been lucky and that clouded my thinking. When I ran my selection process thru 25 wet tracks days (about 200 races) my POT was well down. 20% less winners, but when I did win the av price was lower. Maybe it is just easier for the bookmakers to identify the potential winners. Or just because the fields are smaller, or because so many scratchings upset my system. Whatever, it goes down. I tried to tweak a bit here and there to accomodate for the conditions, but it seemed that it was the short odds on reasonably favored horses that got me.

(P.S. my selection criteria has been honed over 3 years, so I figure 200 wet day races was enough to see if there was a pattern)

"Quote" Jockey BJ Melham after riding his fourth winner for the day, race eight at Sale yesterday, "Charlies Queen" drawn barrier "1" "

"I had to get her to the outside fence,you couldn't win down the inside !!!!"


Quote Gary Creasy (?) North Coast on course tipster,,(nice approachable guy)

"It's impossible to tip on these (wet) days.It's just a question of who finds the fast lane first!!!!".

And on and on ad infinitum...........

I go to the races two or three times a week.Dry days I punt,wet days its pie and chips and a chat to the locals.

Anyway,,, I'm off to the races :)