I have for the last two days tried something radical. Well radical to me. I disowned my database and trialled handicapping the good old fashioned way using the oldest computer i had (my brain).

I decided I would search for horses to lay rather then win. I decided I would find the horses in each race which really had less then 1% chance of winning. If there was any reason the horse might pull out a hail mary and win the race then I excluded it.

To do this I used the breif PDF from R&S form site. You can find this by clicking on the meeting. It is essentually my ********** sheet and gives me all the info I need for a race and the horses in a few pages.

My first meeting wasn't a success. I had 8 selections but one of them won at 9.20 on betfair. hmmm. I reassessed why this one had won and continued to analyse the meetings. Keep in mind I did this retropectively last night without knowing the results. For the other 4 meetings yesterday i had 28 selections. I had two horses which ran in third and 25 which didn't hit a top four position. I checked why the two horses ran in third and found a couple more reasons to check before making a selection.

So all up the first day was 1 winner and 2 thirds from 36 selections. The expectged winners according to Chrome Princes calcualtion was 1.52 so it was mathematically possible I was just lucky. Some of these selections went off above 100 so in real life I would not lay them. So looking at only those under 100 there were 23 seelctions for 1.47 expected winners. If I had layed these to a fixed liability I would have been up 29.39 on a $100 liability.

So not to be disheartened by the winner yesterday this morning I did todays meetings. Overall I had 34 selections for a return of 75.95 after the 5% commission. There was again 2 placings but no winners. I have looked at why those 2 placings occurred and again found a couple of things to check. Sticking to those under $100 the day finished with 25 selections and a profit of 72.52.

So all up my record for two days for under $100 is 48 selections for 1 winner and a profit of 101.91 after the 5% commission. The expected winners over this period was 2.23 winners.

Im going to continue to see how this goes on paper and see if I can get the winning amount up to at least 10 winners difference (1000 units profit). If that works I may actually start to use this method as I felt a lot more secure in my selections and I really expected them to lose.

Although slightly more time consuming then an automated appraoch to making selections, I can still find the lays within about 10mins per meeting as its easy to disregard horses for many reasons which may give them a slight chance to win.

Has anyone tried handicapping to find lays which they think have less then 1% chance ? Have you been successful ?

I feel I have a better understanding of the things to keep an eye out for from looking at my computer analysis many times. Its almost easy to see why horses have a chance (although I can't tell you the % chance they have) and those which will really struggle and really will be floundering at the back of the pack as they approach the line.

I'll let you know how I continue to go. Unfortunately I can't do the UK markets as I don't understand them enough so will stick with the AUS races for now.