Hi folks, an interesting title you might say. For most of the 1990's I subscribed to PPM, and purchased some of their systems, when I was a lot more gullible than I am now (I think). During the mid 90's they put a system book out entitled "Watch My Back". I am sure this was the name of it, written by their famous system writer The Optimist I recall was his name. I cannot find my copy of this book and this is the reason for this post.......Does anyone still have it..??

I think it was a very simple system surrounding backing last start winners within 7 days, who led all the way at their last start. May have been a couple more twists, can't really remember.

I'm interested in going over the rules and stats, naturally I emailed PPM but they dont remember it,....typical.

This is a bit along similar lines to what I do, but I allow 21 days and not 7. And not necessarily the horse has to lead all the way, but I have changed my way that I look at sectional times and replays now. My new years resolution was not to back backmarkers any more. (plus my other new years resolution was never to leave sydney on or near boxing day again to head home along the pacific highway).

After each saturday meeting at sydney and melbourne I copy and paste all the sectionals into a spreadsheet, with formulas for lengths gained/lost by any horse in relation to the winner in the final 600/400/200. My spreadsheet also tells me the tempo of the race of the first half compared to the second half (final 600). Previously I might find a runner who was 12th at the 600, 8th at the 200 and gained say 3 lengths on the winner over the final 200, wow, I must blackbook this one and back him/her next start. The only problem was, next start it would do the same thing again, get well back, fly home to maybe grab a place. Time and time again. So now I am only looking at horses who race very handy, finish well, and of course the times must be pretty good compared to the first half of the race. Another thing I now look at is after I have blackbooked a certain horse, I go back to its previous prep, or even the one before and see what it did at the same time in, it's amazing how many I spot that are identical in their preps, and this of course then determines ones degree of confidence leading to its next run.

Last saturday, bets in only 6 races, for 3 winners, Gold Trail led all way at Rosehill paid $5.00; Rok Posta sat just in behind the leaders at Flemington, paid $10.00 (over $12 on the totes); and Vigor, sat just behind the pace at Flemington, paid $2.10.

All from previous sectional times as above.

I would think it would be nearly impossible for anyone of you data base holders to produce any sort of stats along these lines over a period of time. i.e. Winners who won their last start who led all way, raced on pace etc, etc.

So does anyone recall this "Watch My Back", I just cannot find my copy.

Paul