John,

I suggest you ignore the actual placing and look at lengths beaten or lengths won instead. If a horse runs fifth beaten by 1 length I consider that "better" than a horse that run 2nd but was beaten by 2 lengths (assuming races were of equal quality). Of course you also have to look at the class of the 2 races and the opposition, etc. So a horse beaten by 1 length in a good quality race is probably better than one that wins a poor quality country race.

__________________
"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson