Becareful,

Following on from the research you have done on avg dividends etc..

Have you looked at the difference b/t staying races and shorter races??

For example, do short priced horses - odds-on and $2-4 win, have a worse record in 2100m+ races???

Might be hard to compare, as not many stayers start that short, but I would be interested to know.

Lately a few short priced stayers have flopped - Forest Jim, Distinctly Secret etc.. I don't remember many winning, whereas with sprints you still see a few short priced horses win.

Chief,

Short-priced horses do have a SLIGHTLY better record in shorter races although there are not really that many races over the long distances (2100M+) and they tend to have larger fields so as you say it is probably not comparing apples with apples. For the record I did some analysis on Short races (1200M or less), Medium (>1200 and <2100) and Long (2100M+). These figures are based on one years data:

Number of Races: S=1400, M=2012, L=274
Winners $1.00-$2.00 S=8%, M=6%, L=6%
Winners $2.10-$5.00 S=42%, M=41%, L=35%
Winners $5.10-$10.00 S=28%, M=28%, L=34%
Winners $10.10-$20.00 S=14%, M=16%, L=14%
Winners Over $20 S=8%, M=8%, L=11%

However as you noted there are more short priced runners in the shorter races. If we look at the success rate of those runners (ie. what percentage of runners in a given price range win) we get the following:

$1.00-$2.00 runners who win: S=47%, M=50%, L=40%
$2.10-$5.00 runners who win: S=25%, M=25%, L=24%

NOTE: The 40% figure for Odds-on runners in Long races is based on only 110 runners so you need to treat it with caution - not a big enough sample size to guarantee accuracy.

thanks for that.
If that trend did continue over a larger no of races - possible reasons for short priced horses having a better record over shorter distances, would be

# pace is more genuine in shorter races - best horse should win if mkt is accurate.
# lack of quality stayers in Australia - which creates more false favs.