G,day Shoto,,,With regard to my selections it will be clear to you that with my blanket bombing approach to betting that I dont have time to pour over form guides.though.......

I do spend hours going through the sectional times for the Sydney and Melbourne tracks for all of their meetings.Weekends and Midweek.This is time worth spending because it throws up plenty of good winners,often at very succulent odds.There are a couple of recent threads on sectionals.I "blackbook" them and they are e/mailed back to me the day before the race.I assume that everyone here is using the "free" blackbook service.

The Victorian tab service ratings are excellent and I always include their 100 pointer.Also I spend a fair bit of time in the Tasmanian tab site at
http://www.thetote.com.au/# Just go into the form guides.You will find that their ratings produce the goods.

I'm retired of course and time is on my side with regard to punting.I have spent a lot of time going through past meetings on the Victorian tab site.One of the things that became clear was that if for example their ratings go like this..100,,,,99,,,95,, ,95 etc etc,, and the odds are more or less in accord with the ratings and there is an 80's rater appearing at $4 or so. "Get on it"...It strikes at an amazingly high percentage.

Betting fluctuations play a big part in my strategy,not always following plunge horses,but trying to read the market and get the feel of the race.I use the site which gives dual acceptors and i treat them with respect.So as you can see I use a fairly broad based approach to selections.

I want to stress that punting is my hobby.It's a challenge and like all hobbies getting positive rewards for your endeavours makes it worthwhile.I have an old mate who flies model aeroplanes,he crashes the **************s all of the time.He just patiently puts them back together and gets back into it.

With regard to losing runs,they do come, no denying it.I read somewhere,Don Scott??? that unless you can actually feel physical pain when you are losing then you are not losing.Lolol if i get a punting twinge I rule off,,bail out and pull the rip cord.As you say at 61% substantial losing runs are rare and my recovery betting does not really permit painful losses.

My softly softly accumulator approach to punting just doesnt appeal to a lot of people and that's fair enough.It's just that when I look at the balance at the end of the day and find that I have made a few bucks I realize that the "value" in punting goes beyond dollar terms.

Good luck,, good punting...