Max
I found that the third fav was all over the place. just as you are doing now. I found that because of interest in the method and that it was openly discussed that in the dying moments the third fav would plunge and in fact become the second fav and in numerous occassions it became the fav. This was in spite of being the clear third fav for the entire course of betting. Different betting arenas produced different results. I was using the tote WA Tab as to select the horse that I considered the clear third fav and betting this on betfair. Doing this I got a different and better result than Ocho was getting.
What you must do is aim for consistency. Pick a time and stick with it. This plan works the 4th and 5th fav so it does not really matter which horse you choose so long as you are consistent.
The race club and it's handicapper thinks that they have an equal race. The owner and trainer want a close race but they all think that they have a slight edge. The punters however do not have anything to do the setting up of the race think that they know the winner. Depending how hard they wear their convictions on their sleeves they are right from 82% down to below 20% of the time. The more data they have to compare the horses the better they are at choosing the fav.
These early races are mostly maidens and 2 or 3yr old races. They are only there to entertain the early attendees to the main races of the day. They have virtually no track record at all and the horse that has raced before or placed before is the fav without basis. Any horse can win and does win. First races of a meet has a 36% s/r overall. Two in three races are won by another horse. The limited research that I did puts the third fav at about 25% which is considerably higher than the 15% overall.

DO NOT AT ANY STAGE BE GREEDY. STOP AT THE FIRST WINNER OR YOU WILL BE GIVING THE WINNINGS BACK.

This system is a winner provided that you can get the third fav odds which should average about $6. Or 4th fav at $8 or 5th fav at $10. It will even work on the 2nd fav at $4+ over the first 4 races. The key factor is not the winners that are in the first six races but the number of losers. This method drastically reduces the losers only if you stop on a winner. A winner in the first race pays for the days that there are no winners in six. A winner in the sixth breaks even and all other winners provide some profit. This should be about 25% POT. Better than most systems.

The problem is that too many use the system which destroys the returns. The key is getting the odds. If most of your wins are $4 then it is a loser.

Go to Ocho's thread and you will see that initially he was killing the pig and then was not breaking even. It would be would reading that thread completely, because all you are doing is bringing a good system to everybodies interest again which destroys the odds again.

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