Dr Ron,

Okay, this is the pricing method I was talking about. You might like to experiment with it a bit and see if it works for you.

You'll notice that it heavily favours horses near the top of the ratings (that's the way Don Scott used to do it) and doesn't even consider horses rated over 10 kgs behind the top rated horse. Well, if a horse is rated that far behind, you really shouldn't worry about it any way.

Firstly, you convert your weight ratings to a score out of 100 using this table I've made:

Top rated horse = 100 points
0.5 kgs behind = 85 points
1.0 kgs behind = 70 points
1.5 kgs behind = 60 points
2.0 kgs behind = 50 points
2.5 kgs behind = 44 points
3.0 kgs behind = 38 points
3.5 kgs behind = 33 points
4.0 kgs behind = 28 points
4.5 kgs behind = 24 points
5.0 kgs behind = 20 points
5.5 kgs behind = 17 points
6.0 kgs behind = 14 points
6.5 kgs behind = 12 points
7.0 kgs behind = 10 points
7.5 kgs behind = 8 points
8.0 kgs behind = 6 points
8.5 kgs behind = 4 points
9.0 kgs behind = 3 points
9.5 kgs behind = 2 points
10.0 kgs behind = 1 point
10.5+ kgs behind = 0 points

Here's an example race to show you:
No.1 - Rtg 59.0 = 100 points
No.2 - Rtg 57.0 = 50 points
No.3 - Rtg 56.0 = 38 points
No.4 - Rtg 54.0 = 20 points
No.5 - Rtg 53.5 = 17 points
No.6 - Rtg 56.5 = 44 points
No.7 - Rtg 52.5 = 12 points
No.8 - Rtg 50.5 = 4 points

Then you simply add up the scores of all the horses in the race to get a total. To get each horse's price you simply divide that total by each horse's score. In this case, the total of all the scores is 285, so you simply divide 285 by all the horses' scores, do a little rounding up or down and you get the following approximate dividends:

No.1 - $2.85
No.2 - $5.70
No.3 - $7.50
No.4 - $14.25
No.5 - $16.75
No.6 - $6.50
No.7 - $23.75
No.8 - $71.25

That is of course a 100% market. If you want to get a market which more accurately compares with TAB prices, you should actually multiply the total score of 285 by .85 and then divide that figure by each horse's score.

That's it. All you need is that points table and a calculator and it doesn't take long at all.