Jacfin. G'day. As you know, I'm not a great computer whizz and actually ONLY keep handwritten records of the longshot winners in detail and the total number of bets I've made. The one's that don't win I just note as P or NP (ie place, no place) and don't bother with divvies for them etc, or even the names. Anyhow this year I've bet 41 race meetings on Sat and Public Hols. On average you get about 25 bets per day. On Public Hols it is often the case that there are only 1 or 2 "quality" racemeetings as the Holiday is not nationwide., so these days are (kind of) "half-saturday" standard, with fewer bets. Anyway, from these 1000 odd bets (please, no instant cardiac arrests!!!) the return is just on 1800 Units. I suspect this is a little lower than usual. I don't keep very accurate records about a lot of things when they are profitable, as I'm of the "if it ain't broke, why fix it" school, so it's all a little "touchy-feely" with me.

Anyhow, here's something else everyone might want to look at from the recent past. Go to 30/4/2005 BR8. Could any horse be "worse" than this???? First run in 14 months!! Last time in it was about last in a field of 13 after another spell. (ie immediately spelled AGAIN). Before THAT it was also about last of 15. 2 runs in 18 months and both at the tail of the field. Hmmmm. This had THREE things going for it, however. You can probably see it's a dead cert "mechanical" and that it's not always been a Gold Coaster but the other "suspicious" manoeuvre might take a little closer inspection. It was THIS that showed conclusively that making Applicant an outsider was FALSE in the extreme. Cheers. Gotta run. Back tomorrow night or Sat morning.

Earlier in the thread we were talking about concentrating on horses on the limit weight as most longshots are on the limit weight....

I put forward the same idea here that i just did in the Outsider thread,that being that it might pay to ignore horses with a win in their last 4 starts..

So look at all the horses on the limit weight,rule out any that have a win in form,i'd also rule out any that havent won a race,from there a bit of form study and a bit of luck and you might latch on to a roughie like Volitant at $40 yesterday.

I've been doing a lot of study on longshots recently and one thing which has become apparent in Sat metro longshots is that most of the winners have a last three starts beaten lengths total of less than 21.5 lengths.

A few big priced winners yesterday on the limit weight without a win in their last 4 starts.

$22.80,$34.20 and the 200/300 -1 shot at canberra.

Interstingly the canberra winner and saturdays big winner Volitant both were on the limit weight,without a win in their form and having their 4th run back from a spell,could be a system right there..............

I've always liked backing horses that are having their 4th run from a spell.It seems to me that an average horse seems to need 3 runs to get to peak fitness. This wont be the case with all horses but I would be interested to see some stats regarding number of runs from a spell before saluting.????

Yes it is quite odd, some horses love being first up and then wont perform second up and then start to improve on thier third-fourth up start.

Certainly gives the horse enough time to perform. And well if you have a $26 winner, then that gives you 25 races without a winner to at least grab another winner. Certainly seems like it could come up with a handy profit.

Ill be keeping an eye on this for sure.

__________________
GO VOUVRAY

Hi,

For what its worth my 2 cents worth. I am always looking for the longshots. I have over the years developed my own formula. I always look at distance, speed and weight first. Looking to see how fast the horse can race over that distance carrying what weight. I then take into consideration such things as barrier and track conditions. I totally disregard class which I think can be misleading - look at Leica Falcon. I also find out what the track record is for that distance and compare the horse to that.

For the Melbourne Cup I look for horses that have a record of running under 3.20 on a good or better track. The race record is 3.16 all the best horses should be capable of running under 3.20. This year my 3200m horses were Makybe Diva and Eye Popper. For the horses that have not run at 3200m I usually look at the record of those that have raced at 2800 or over next and then disregard the rest. This year there was a whole swag that had not gone near 2800m but only 2400m so I looked at their form which brought up On A Juene and Lachlan River. I then monitor the weather and reframe my selections if the track conditions deteriorate.

Another favourite of mine is to apply the criteria to horses coming from the country to the city. Also, I look at the lead up races to the Spring Carnival when all the good horses are resuming.

regards

Sisterfifi