Purple heart is right about one thing though and that is more favorites win the early races [maidens etc] than any other race. You might go broke backing them though.

Just recently one of our statsmen here printed out the favorite SR for races 1 to 9 for all races Aust. wide and the highest SR was race 1 gradually reducing to the worst SR of the last race of the day.

The better races are more hotly contested and the favorite's average SP also increases on par with the reducing SR.

Cheers.