Hi there Vortech, I used to do something very similar for about 4 years. I used to get the sectionals for all sydney and melbourne racing, copy it onto a spreadsheet and apply various formulas to it. My spreadsheet also had the tempo of the race worked out, and what each horse gained on the winner over the last 600/400/200. I would then enter the ones I liked into a blackbook and follow next start. I had some good results over the years with this, but I have strayed away from this at present. I'm currently working on speed ratings with the data obtained from R&S, giving every horse in the race (after the race) a rating based on lengths finished from the R&S standard time for that track and distance. That is then transported to a data base within the spreadsheet, to be vlooked up when I copy and paste the fields in say for next saturdays sydney meeting.

I was also using ratings (results) from say newcastle, kembla, hawkesbury etc, but I found that they were giving me misleading figures, figures to high for that track. They were rating high i.e. close to the standard time for the track/distance for say newcastle and throwing up high figures when compared against horses who had their last start at say randwick.

Doing a check using the database purchased from this site, revealed that the % of winners on a saturday meeting at sydney who had their last start on a metro track was about double versus those who had their last start on a provincial track.

So I am now discarding those horses. This of course doesnt give me ratings for every horse in the race, but I am trying to see how I can be very chosey and look for standout selections.

Maybe one day I might go back to the sectional times analysis but tell me how your theory goes over the next few weeks,

Paul