Sorry - couldn't resist Jaffa even though Crash has already mentioned this.

By your statistics in 10 horse races the inside 70% of barriers give 70% of winners and the outside 30% of barriers give 30% of winners. In the larger races, taking an average of 13 starters we get the inside 70% of barriers giving 75% of winners so the outside 30% of barriers gives 25% of winners. Not exactly earth-shattering bias there! Of course with the punters avoiding those outside barriers in droves I have no doubt that those 25% of winners will pay much better than the average so the POT for the outside barriers will be better.

Some more stats that some may find interesting. I checked the results for ALL races this year with a minimum of 14 actual starters. This gave just over 2000 races considered with a bit over 30700 starters.

B1 to B7 - 7.6% strike rate, $10.68 Ave Div for a LOT of 19%
B8 to B13 - 6.1% strike rate, $11.22 Ave Div for a LOT of 31%
B14 to B24 - 6.4% strike rate, $14.69 ave div for a LOT of only 5%

My point here is that inner barriers will generally have some advantage over outer barriers but the market OVERESTIMATES this advantage so runners from outside barriers are, generally speaking, better value than they should be. I am not suggesting that people should be looking to back outer barriers only, but if your selection is starting from an outside barrier I wouldn't discount it (maybe just increase your required price by a dollar or two).

As an example 2 weeks ago I had a runner rated clearly on top and was expecting a fairly short price - but it was starting from the outside barrier in a field of 16 (from memory) and it ended up starting well into double figures. It won nicely and I am sure if it had drawn barrier 1 I only would have got half the price. No doubt many others ignored it because of the barrier and put their money elsewhere.

Just another point on your comments regarding what jockey's say about barriers. One of the things that has always amazed me is how LITTLE jockeys apparantly understand about the mathematics behind racing, in particular geometry. It seems to me that for a lot of them a basic course in geometry and a few hours spent watching race replays with a good analyst would help their racecraft a huge amount.

Anyway how about a quick quiz to illustrate just one point. Lets say horse A is starting from barrier 1 and horse B is starting from a barrier 20 metres further out. The first turn is 200 metres from the starting point. Lets say horse B runs in a straight line for the turn and crosses the field to get to the rail at the start of the turn. How much further has it had to run than Horse A that was on the rail the whole time????

Back later with the answer.

Answer: just shy of 1 metre, or about a long neck.

Correct Mark (as usual!) - go to the top of the class :smile:

Now maybe someone can explain to me how a 1 metre difference in distance travelled is such a huge disadvantage? Of course the risk of getting trapped wide is there for the wide barriers but inner barriers have the risk of being "boxed in" which can be just as bad.

Nice work guys. I think you have to look at the early speed in the race. If they get an early cross in then thats fine and some horses like galloping room. If a horse is suspect at the distance then a wide barrier is a major deterant.

And there's always the risk of those drawn inside to miss the kick, and have to go wide, usually around a bend, to make up ground.
The scenario's are almost unlimited.

too true.

Like some o/s racing clubs, let's forget about drawing for barriers altogether - align the barriers with the saddle-cloth number - in theory the better the horse the better the barrier draw.

no way thats ridiculous.

why?