The question is, which is better?

I would be most interested to read some informed opinion on this topic and as a started shall provide some research of my own.

By ways of comparison I have decided to use the top rated horse on weight and time from the Wizard formguide for B,S,M races on Saturdays from 3 Nov 2001 to 30 Mar 2002

Note: in some races there was more than one top rater and in the case of scratchings the starter with the highest rating was used.

The results:

WRAT
sel 499
win 117 (23.4%)
ret 482.4 (-3.3%)
ave. div $4.12

TRAT
sel 533
win 107 (20.1%)
ret 514.3 (-3.5%)
ave. div $4.81

NB. the dividends were selected on this basis-
where the horse started (SP) at its top fluctuation (TF) this price was used.
-
where the horse firmed in the betting the dividend one turn below the TF was used.
ie. TF 3.50; SP 3.00; price used 3.20
-
TAB dividends were not considered although some probably paid considerably more

I believe this method would have returned a small profit if TF had been used on all winners as the difference would probably be greater than 3%.

So WRAT has the higher strike rate but there is a minimal difference in profits. No clear indication here.

Included in these winners were 14 winners in double figures, 3 over 20.0, with a best of 41.0.

(maybe I could sell this as a system, at least it would take a long time to go broke!)

further research to be done:

how do the dual top raters go? expect higher strike rate but significantly smaller divis.

what about only those whose TF is 10.0 or better? only need 7% strike rate to break even.

As a point of interest the horse which returned the 41.0 divi was called Vanishing Powder and won race 8 @ eagle farm on Jan 26. I seem to recall this site advertsing it as a winner under one of their selection methods.



[ This Message was edited by: thekey on 2002-08-20 21:55 ]