Interesting post walkermac. When mechanically calculating the predicted settling positions for a race myself I use the historical settling position approach. My calcs are based on the settling and turn positions from the horses last 4 starts and then also take into account barrier and weight them each differently. The weightings to each are based on correlation to settling position of today's race.

I haven't got stats in front of me for accuracy of my settling predictions but from memory my predicted leader actually lead approx 30% of the time, and was in the top 3 65-70% of the time.

Greater accuracy could probably be squeezed out of this as well if I re-worked it and added/tested some other features but it serves its main purpose for now. In terms of predicting a leader on a favorable leaders track with not much pace in the race, Tawteen was the perfect example on saturday at the valley for easy money.