Feather,

Don't worry about the 'brake' business, no disadvantage there, but a couple of system 'rule' points should be cleared up for handy future use.

[quote] "today i only had one sr7-6 1st $4.60. #5 was scratched".

A [S] 'spell' is a min. of 30 days. Some [older] circles consider it 3 mths. and anything less a 'freshen-up', but 30 days is the shortest period that can be considered a spell and is general excepted nowadays as the common standard by most formguides and punters. Which Newspaper do you use by the way?

The scratched runner [5] Cavalier King has had 5 runs in before it was scratched yesterday and runner [6] Calaluna your above selection has had 8 runs in since it's last spell.
Either your newspaper's formguide is out of whack or you ignoring the 4th start in from a spell rule from the original rules you are fol???ing. Apart from all that, wasn't Sydney a 'dead', not a 'good' track yesterday?

Also, 'Must be on the 3rd pp betting line' is not the same as 'the third favorite'. There can be any number of horses on any betting line including more than one runner on the 1st betting line. A betting line is a price not a number, so the shortest price is the 1st. betting line, the 2nd. shortest price is the second betting line etc. and so on up in price lines. Except for a few outsiders, 5 to 7 betting lines often cover a 14 horse field.

If you were looking for the 3rd. favorite pp and there was say 1 runner at 3.50 [1st betting line] and 2 at $5 [2nd line] and 2 more at $7 [3rd line] etc., neither of the runners on the 3rd. betting line could possibly be the 3rd pp favorite!
If 'must be the 3rd pp fav.' was a system rule for the example I just mentioned, it would be the horse on the 2nd betting line with the largest TAB number, the runner with the smaller No.would be the 2nd, fav.. That is generally [accepted] as how you sort out the order on different betting lines. It's full of holes because we are talking pp not sp. TAB no 3 at $5 doesn't necessarily have a better wining chance than TAB no 10 at $5 for all sorts of reasons, but because the class of horses in a race is generally arranged from the top [TAB no 1] down, No. 3 would be considered 2nd.pp fav., not No.10 even though they are both the same pp price. The ???est No. runner on the 3rd. line [$7] would be the 4th pp fav. etc.

How many of your winning selections actually passed the original rules I don't know, but your obviously doing something right by ignoring some of them :-)