She was 16/1, I had her $6.50, she was a far better betting proposition.

That's another thing I've found through research - the more horse's you back in a race, the harder it is to profit.

I think the reason for this is also to do with the "unknown" factor. Some races, you're going to get it wrong badly, sometimes due to things form and weights etc can't pick up on. In these races, if you've backed 4-5 chances b/c they're all over your assessed odds, the damage is big. Then, in the race when you're best overlay wins, if again you've backed 4-5 chances, the profit is not as big as it can be.

You get more collects backing 4-5 overlays but you need TOO many winners to show a profit.

I rarely back more than one horse a race, even if I have more than one overlay in my top few selections, and I find that it is a very secure way to bet, b/c you clean up when you have a horse as a big overlay (like Demerger, or Altruist on Sunday at Sale, who I priced $5.70, paid >$22, one bet for the race) and when you get it wrong, you limit the damage.

If you can, research this in your own punting, see if it helps.

As to the luck thing, of course no-one can predict it, but it's going to happen to all horses at some point, which is ANOTHER reason not to take odds on - odds onnies will miss runs also, and possibly more often, b/c other jockeys are often conscious of keeping a shortie "pocketed", and trying to get it beaten by ganging up on it. Think of the way they took on Might and Power in the 1997 Melbourne Cup (and he was 9-2!).