I've forgotten the amount of times I have ruled out a horse as a potential winner, due to poor barrier draw, only to see it get up and win! Sound familiar?

I was reading a post [ealsewhere] that stated an analysis of 26,500 races with a min.of 12 runners and max. of 16 runners, discloses that the inside 50% of Barriers win 52.5% of races.
Is that all? If that is the case, then any consideration of Barrier Draw in Handicapping, must contribute a negitive skew result.

Considering the importance that Barrier Draw plays in the betting habits of Punters, it stands to reason that good Horses running from "percieved" poor barriers, must be underbet. That creates overlays and more $$$.

Those Barrier Draw charts showing winners/barriers at various distances arn't what they seem either, as they are skewed by
the fact that the inside barriers, 1 to 8 have far more runs than barriers 9 to 18 etc.due to field size. The futher out the barriers are from say barrier 8, the less runs and less wins they have.
Punters dutifuly note those barrier stats. and a betting skew towards the "winning" barriers result!

[ This Message was edited by: crash on 2003-08-11 05:28 ]