Good point there Mr.Ed, I've always quoted the average divi ONLY of the placegetters, and presumed that everyone else did as well, just shows you , left/right brained and all that.

As an avid place only punter (main betting) I can tell you that some weird things happen and some amazing winning and losing runs. Just recently I had the most exhastipating run of 4ths, it was like there was some entity making it happen. (loopy stuff, eh?) But as always it's the overall S/R + ave divi that counts over a long period of time and many thousands of bets.

I have wondered though if I was to study the divies of all bets say 1 miute b4 the off and maybe some groups are more profitable than others. Personally mine are all in as my bets are on b4 racing, but it's very rare that I have a $1.10c or even a $1.04c payer. (betting best tote that is)

Guess youve done all your own reseach, but just 2 cents worth, there does seem to be merit in only backing the selection if there is less than 10 runners.

I'm doing some reasearch at the moment though to check the profitabilty of less than 8 runners i.e. only 2 places but better returns, but so far it looks like 8 or 9 runners is the go.

Will watch your results with interest.