Okay, well, of course there won't be any more ratings for this month, so time to go over the results....

There were 76 rated races for the month. Of these, the top rated horse won 28 (37%) and the 2nd top rater won 14 (18%), so between them that's 55% of races won by one of the top 2 rated horses. In all, 66 of the 76 races (87%) were won by one of the top 5 rated runners.

But since I have been going over old results, I've found that there are certain types of ratings races which tend to be a bit less reliable regarding the top raters than others. These races are:

(a) races with more than 4 bold rated runners.
(b) races where the top 2 ratings add up to less than 50 points.
(c) races where the 2nd rated horse is rated on less than 15 points.

Now, that doesn't mean that you should completely disregard those races, but from previous results, they do seem to be less successful.

Anyway, there were 20 such races in August and if you deleted them from the summary, you'd be left with 56 races. Of those 56, the top rater won 24 of them (43%) and the 2nd top rater won 10 (18%), so that's 61% of suitable rated races won by one of the top 2. In all, 52 of the 56 suitable races (93%) were won by one of the top 5 raters.

And if you limited it further to just Saturday racing which has been more reliable than midweeks, you'd be left with 31 suitable races. Of those, the top rater won 14 (45%) and the 2nd top rater won 8 (26%), so that's a total of 71% won by one of the top 2 raters. 29 of the 31 races (94%) were won by one of the top 5 rated runners.

Let's take a look at dutching the top 2. In the suitable betting races, simply use the top 2 horses' ratings to tell you how much to bet on them. For example, if their ratings are 36 and 18, then bet $36 & $18 on them to win. If you don't want to bet $54 on a race, then you could always halve the amounts and make it $18 & $9.

So, sticking to the suitable races.....

(a) No more than 4 bold rated horses
(b) Top 2 ratings add up to at least 50 points
(c) 2nd rated horse rated on at least 15 points

....... and using the dutching method outlined above, here are the figures for August:

56 races
34 wins (61%)
Outlay $3409
Return $3544.50
Profit $135.50 (4%)

.... and if we concentrate on Saturday racing only, we have:

31 races
22 wins (71%)
Outlay $1852
Return $2340.20
Profit $488.20 (26%)

Remember, those are just using Unitab figures. You definitely could have done quite a bit better by shopping around for the best price.

Anyway, a bit of food for thought there. You watch it flop dismally in September.