IT'S NOT WORKING!

My deadly set of ratings have died.
God rest their poor soul.

Enter the DART SYSTEM Mark-II.

We have a Dart-board with 8 equal sized areas on it.
If we discharge our missile,say 10,000 times, we would hit each number 12.5% of the time.
If the 8 areas weren't of equal size then the larger sized areas would be struck a greater percentage of throws than the areas of smaller size.
If you can't understand that,then perhaps you may need to go and join Doctor Pangloss at the other Forum.

Now we get rid of the dartboard and replace it with a greyhound race with 8 competitors.
If this race with those 8 competitors was rerun 10,000 times,it is unlikely that each greyhound would win 12.5% of the races.
The goal we are seeking is to find what share of those 10,000 races each greyhound will win.Then we can convert those percentages into prices and have a deadly accurate set of prices to use for the 10,001th race.

Let's suppose some Scientists or Geologists,(Good-day Punter57),actually conducted this experiment of 10,000 races,and recorded the results on a top secret document.

Here is the document.It turned up in my email box this morning.

1. 12.5%
2. 12.5%
3. 12.5%
4. 12.5%
5. 12.5%
6. 12.5%
7. 12.5%
8. 12.5%

LOOK FAMILIAR?
Yes it's our dartboard.Those scientists were playing darts!

We know those results ain't greyhound races because,even though we have never seen 10,000 races rerun, races won't look like that.
The percentage wins of races are decided by things called Factors.
And the various Factors contribute to percentages by varying degrees.
We need to establish what these Factors are, and then establish the importance of each Factor.
The way to find out some of these factors are to watch races and see what takes place.
I used to believe the biggest single factor is that the dog that wins the race is usually the dog that can run that distance in the quickest time.
Well playing around with ratings has given me second thoughts.
Probably the biggest factor is the dog that can lead will win a large proportion of the races.And the dog that can begin in the first 2 will win a large share.
Racing style is another.

If you are out there ROCKSTEADY,take notice.I'M SORRY!

PEOPLE!
I am going to videotape Greyhound races.
I am going to watch what the winning greyhounds did and what the losing greyhounds didn't do.
I am coming back to let you all know.