Hermes (and anyone else interested):

I did some analysis on my database using the QTab ratings and thought you may be interested in the results. I have the QTab ratings for all races run this year (since 9/1/02) so I looked at all races since that date (quite a few races - I need a faster PC as it took some time for each query!).

First I just looked at 96-100 raters that started at $10 or more which gave 6094 qualifiers for total divs of 5291 (87% return). I then tried various price ranges (eg. $10-$20, over $20, $8-$12, etc) which gave various results but nothing profitable. Restricting the selection to 99 or 100 raters made a very small profit (about 1% POT).

I then tried looking at the data by the day of the week and found that weekdays were better than weekends - Sunday was particularly bad. So I cut out weekends but was still very marginal. I then looked at it by the race state and track condition and finally came up with some profitable figures.

The best criteria I came up with was:

99 or 100 raters only
Approx div at jump between $11 and $20
Ignore ACT, NT, TAS & overseas meetings
Weekday meetings only
Only bet on Good or Fast tracks

This gave the following results based on which TAB you use for the selection price and dividend:
TABCORP: 351 qualifiers paid $559 (59% POT)
NSW: 325 qualifiers paid $556 (71% POT)
QLD: 342 qualifiers paid $451 (32% POT)

Including the 96, 97 & 98 raters still resulted in a profit (with the other conditions) but POT is significantly lower so wouldn't really recommend it.

Applying the same criteria to Saturday meetings gave a small profit on NSW (around 15% POT) and break even on Tabcorp/Unitab.

So there you have it - a very simple but profitable system based on Qld rating. Can't say whether results will hold up in the future but it could be worth a shot!

PS. This is only for gallops - Harness racing shows a marginal loss with the same criteria and Greyhounds a big loss.

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"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson