My best bet for Jan 15 is Broadband in race 5 at Caulfield.

Benny

bad luck on your selection.
just to emphasise my interest in listed horses as people on this forum know my method of selection.
2 Broadband (4) 57.0 5yo b g (D L Freedman at Rye) D Oliver
"broadband(1200)(dead)(caulfield)24-08-02)8"
Factor: 1.854
6 Youth (1) 53.5 4yo b g (J R Hawkes at Flemington) D Gauci
"youth(good)(1400)(flemington)06-03-04)8"
Factor: -2.0195
the above date tells a little story.
the factors indicate that youth was 4 lengths ahead of broadband.
also broadband last featured in a listed or group race in august 2002 and youth in march 2004.
this would imply that broadband is not up to this class of race and hasnt been for a fair while.
as he is getting older he may still come up to it but I would be waiting for him until he places again at this level.
I wouldnt be taking short odds on him just yet.

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laurie

Topsy,

I don't quite understand how you rate these horses. If you don't mind me asking, what does that 'factor' mean?

thanks for the query.
i dont usually elaborate the factor i use because you ratings guys would challenge me and tear me to pieces because it goes against most ratings theories.

its what i call the swing weights and margins.

if a horse gets beaten by 1 length carries 57 and is beaten by a horse carrying 53 kgs i credit him with 4kgs
i try to bring every horse in the race back to equal weights.

so if phar lap gets beaten by a short half head by peter pan and phar lap carries 65kgs and peter pan carries 55 kgs. then i would say that phar lap beat peterpan by 10kgs less a short half head.

that would go against conventional ratings wisdom.

so next time they measure up at the same weight i would say that phar lap is ahead of peter pan by 7 lengths and would expect him to beat him.

challenging isnt it.
last time broadband was beaten by 1andahalf kilos plus .3 of a length and went up halfkg.
youth was beaten by a narrow margin but had to give 1 and a half kgs and also came down 2kg today and (not counted) he also drew barrier 1.
so looked really good.
lord volksraad came up a length better than youth but drew barrier 6 and i think this made the difference.
3 Irish Crusader (NZ) (7) 57.0 6yo b g (B Mayfield-Smith at Flemington) M Flaherty
"irish crusader(good)(2200)(ballarat)20-11-04)8"
Factor: 0.3805
5 Capadan (NZ) (2) 56.5 6yo b g (R S McDonald at Caulfield) N Callow
"capadan(good)(1630)(flemington)10-07-04)7"
Factor: 0.592
you will note here that irish crusader was .21 lengths ahead of capadan with a similar barrier set up to youth/lord volksraad except that irish crusader was (possibly) ridden a bit better than lord volksraad or was luckier.

conventional or not but its a very handy factor.
the trick is to judge where it is not appropriate to rely too much on it.
e.g. from country to city racing etc.
e.g. country races under normal ratings systems are rated with several kgs lower than city. i dont do that as it is too much work and that is why i use listed horses and dates as a direct filter to punt with.
this is where broadband is discarded not necessarily on his weight factor but on the last date he appeared in listed placings.

i hope you can understand that but it makes it easier for win/place betting.
it is not a good method for trifecta etc as i do not rate the whole field.
but it is good fun without too much work.

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laurie

Whatever works, that's the main thing.

With my ratings, I've been trialling two different methods recently. One is an EXTREMELY simple class and weights method and another one is a much more complex method taking a whole lot of different factors into account. Well, for our Ratings Challenge today, I decided to use the more complex method. For some reason, I thought that it would have to perform better than the easy method. Well, you know the rest. It seems that sometimes it's just best to keep it simple, so that's what I'll be doing in future.

mate i couldn't agree more...if you think of the traditional weight ratings they are very simple....yet when they were intoduced they made people a lot of money....the more filters you add to a ratings system the more it will produced the wrong selection....for instance if you rely on a class type of rating that produces one type of winner...if you introduce a form rating with that it may change the the selection...we just have to find what works and stick to it.

Topsy99, I don't understand your ratings, (too hard for me) but I have followed your posts for a while and can see that you have something formidable there. My pics are much simpler, but at the moment at least are still in profit! (acceptably so)

i use this method to keep the work load down.
i developed it from a former speed programming that i used to do.
but that was too laborious.

in yesterdays racing no matter how simple the method we always get it wrong.
on the weight factors modern era irish crusader and capadan were all within 0.21 lengths of each other. with irish crusader the most recent listed horse (ballarat cup) and getting to a distance he was very good value except that i backed him for a place only.
also the quinella was a bit of a gift but I didnt take it.

also in the rpert clarke stakes grundys crossing was minus 3 on the weights
so the first 3 were all substantially under zero on the weight factors.

good results really.

but referring to the ratings in general too many filters and you dont know where you are.
i guess that trainers know when their horses have a chance so we just have to learn to read the signs.
best wishes.

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laurie