Had a chance to do a bit more research on this. Randomly grabbed my 1994 pile of Wizards. Flat backing of top 6 resulted in an approx. 12% loss. There were, however, many good winners and to back 6 and get this result reveals, I believe, that there is some merit in concentrating on the events that fall into this category.
I think that if one were to consider the top 6 in my ratings but only back those showing $25 + that a good profit could be made.
Due to time pressures many people fall into the 'put on in the morning and forget about category' (myself included unfortunately).
Clearly these results show that the method will not return an overall profit if handled in this way. Nevertheless, as it only usually involves one or two races a day this does not mean a full Saturday of screen watching,
rather about 10 - 20 minutes. My sample year had none of the huge results of 2002 as listed in my earlier posting. I'll keep posting these in bettable races if anyone is interested. Basically what this is doing is lessening the outlay (i.e. number of horses backed - remember, anything under $25 doesn't get backed) but still retaining those lovely long priced winners.
Essentially what I'm doing is a form of punting 'big game hunting'i.e. trying to find races which throw up big dividends.
There are about a dozen races a year (group & listed with 15+ starters) which have shown 100 % + profits every year except 1992 and 2002 backing my top 9 to win and standing out the top 6 with the field in quinellas.
Even better results with trifectas surrounding the top 2 with the top 16 (outlay $1260). Trouble is the outlay and the impact of flexibetting on NSW dividends
(see my much earlier postings if they still exist). I think that the Vic Tab would be the way to go here. Anyone interested in forming a syndicate to have a go at these?