Ozpunter,

Yes, I agree with your previous post on page 2. There are lots of exceptions to horses running to form [longshots get up regularly], but the law of averages should be on PharFromOz method's side.

Not sure who you are addressing in your above post [both?], but I'll answer your first question.

Regarding how much value I put on recent trials, well I'm usually very wary of them. I backed a horse last Sat. because it was from a very good stable that is performing well at the moment. The horse had won a recent 900m trial by over 5 lengths, but come race day it did nothing!

Some horses do well at trials and others don't. How they perform in a race though can be anyones guess and it's next race after a trial is often not the one it's being set to win !
I generally rate a horse on past form etc. and ignore trials results. Other punters might get something out of them though.