Hi Chrome Prince,

Most bookies use a price assessor who provides them with suggested markets for each race. Vince Aspinall and Mark Labourne are two of the better known ones. Some bookies also employ their own.

Bookies take these prices which are usually set to an SP market % and do their own fine tuning, which includes drastically increasing the market % in order to set opening prices.

Of course the tote also plays a role. Many of the largest betting syndicates in Australia are tote players and a common strategy they employ is to put the money on early, which see's the horse open at a ridiculous price on the tote. The logic is that if the horse is already short on the tote, the general public will back around it. The end result is that the horse gets out on the tote in the final stages to a fair price or better price than they would otherwise obtain (due to support for other runners). If they waited until late and then put the money on they would end up with a much shorter dividend as a lot of additional public money would follow them.

Bookies obviously know this strategy and they don't unnecessarily offer opening prices much in excess of the tote. Firstly because they would fear copping some large wager and secondly, why would you offer a much better price than your main competition?

Despite what most people think, ratings aren't really a prime factor used in determining market pricesby price assessors. In summary, price assessment is done by analysis of the horses previous starting prices and its performance, adjusted for changes in class and other relevant conditions in today's race.

The previous starting price of a horse is a pretty good predictor of its starting price and therefore winning chance in the current race (when adjusted for obvious class changes).

Hope this helps :smile: