Hi, Michaelv. Yesterday's dividends were very disappointing. My tip was shown as $3.00 in the newspaper, yet only paid $1.60.

Your figures re the 5-plus pointers are very interesting. So I looked my selections from 6 March and identified those that had a gap of 5 points and more. The results are:

21 races for 13 winners. A strike rate of 61%. Most of them paid odds-on, which I suppose is to be expected. The return was $29.40 for a POT of 40%. For place betting there was 18 placegetters, some of which paid $1.00. The return was $22.50 for a POT of 7%. Overall, the POT applying all filters have performed better for both win and place betting. However the strike rate is not as good. The amount of selections, 21 of them, is still much too small to draw any real conclusions.

There were five Maiden races (my records from 6 March for Maidens are incomplete) for three winners. The return was $6.90 for a POT of 38%. Five selections placed, for a return of $4.90 for a LOT of 2%.

Of course, my figures reflect the selections in which ALL the filters have been applied. Without them, except for the pre-post rule, there would have been more selections, and they might have similar results to yours.

If possible, can you delete races where there were less than eight runners, and see if that improves your results?

From today I'll look at ALL selections that have 5 points-plus just as you did. However, I'll apply the pre-post and the less-than-eight-runners filters.