Anyone who states barrier position are not important knows very little about horses. Barrier position can be crucial to the running style of the horse. Put a good leader in the outside barrier and on most tracks at most distances and you can forget he is going around. Put a good back-marker in barrier 1 and you can forget he is going around. Put him in the outside barrier and you will see a different ball game.

Ice Chariot was a very good example of how easy it was for a good back-marker to win and overturn his crappy performances previously [inside barriers] to his 2 big group wins at the Brisbane carnival from barrier 17 in both events.

The problem for most punters is they wouldn't have a clue as to the running style of the horses in a race they are betting on and so say 'oh barrier positions aren't important or otherwise, inside barrier 9 is good'. Track layout, distance, Jockey ability AND barrier position are all vitally important info, to those who don't like to bet blind [or blinkered].

Find a race with a good horse who is a leader in an inside barrier with no other leaders in the race and you have a horse who controls the race and is money for jam. Find a good back-marker in an outsidish barrier in a race with more than 1 leader to set up a bit of a good pace and you also have money for jam.

I really should do an article here about horse's running styles and how important barriers are. Well overdue I think. Kingston Town was one of the very few horses who could be a leader, an on-pacer, a mid-pacer or a back-marker and win from any barrier taking up the running style the barrier suited.

Not too many Kingston Towns around nowadays so it's worth taking note of a horse's running style and what barrier it's in.

Hi Crash, just wondering if you could share some of your methods on establishing a horses preferred running style.

It really needs an article young buck. I tell you what though, this game is all about 'edge' and from anywhere there is one the public doesn't get their head around except for a few, it's worth understanding. I'm still a bit of a learner, but my punting outcomes have improved heaps since I sat up and took notice of understanding the horse itself, a creature of habit in more areas than we think and each one an 'edge'.

It's all about the edge. I do look at barriers and their winning strike rates at the particular distances, but it is really just another element of many to consider.

Believe me, it's the main one and it's taken me over 30yrs of punting to get around to really looking at it closely.

Crash, not sure if your first sentence was referring to me or not? If so I didnt say barriers wern't important , just that using raw strike rates from an individual barrier on its own wont do the job. If you were not referring to me then please disregard this post.:-)

La Mer,

I'm not sure if you've actually browsed the Markov chain link I posted, but I've now actually figured how to do the key calculations with a spreadsheet. Too much effort to post here, but if someone mathematically inclined genuinely wants to see it I'll try to eventually oblige.

Anyway it's more obvious than ever to me where the hoax is - Game B cannot be combined without irreperably altering its essence.

But it is inconceivable that the Parrondo model could be applied to racing.

Essentially it involves a Game B - a stair climb - where every (say) 3rd step is very unlucky.

But in racing if you know that certain races are very unlucky why don't you just skip them!

So I suspect your associate is deluding himself.

I'm sure I've vented how underwhelming I find arguments involving negative games and/or loss chasing.

But are other plans based on the notion that racing is different to roulette. That is true - there are definite long runs which defy conventional statistics. The trouble is you only find out about them AFTERWARDS. I don't know of anyone who succeeds in predicting runs early on. So these plans appear extremely suspect.

The method I use is to try and withstand even the worst possible run and always keep hanging in. Which means at some point I am forced to reduce. But a horrendous run usually wipes out a lot of competitors so if I survive I end up picking up far more juicy collects.

Having worked extensively in HK and being able to compile many studies of the racing product, one such study was on horses working out on their own or in pairs (time based) in the vast majority of cases these horses INHERENTLY have a "normal" probability distribution (which one would expect or be very likely) introduce these "normal" horses to real competition (Class Ladder) and he has a "Different" distribution, the difference in those two distributions is almost entirely due to the physical artifacts of the Class Ladder and some other racing conditions , and NOT due to the talent component of the Horse.

Further studies confirmed that Barriers / Racing style produced a very distinct range of Distributions .... so in the wash up of all this mumbo jumbo is that Barrier / Racing styles might not produce absolute differences but they do hold the key in being able to provide a very good "performance" distribution

I'll have to just let it slide then, but the jockey is 10 times more important than the barrier.

Let's say we have a leader in barrier 20.

A good jockey will not try to outrace them, he'll slot in midfield and let them settle, rev up to the lead once they settle and work his way to the lead, an inexperience jockey will hunt up and try to outrace them burning all chance.

There is no difference in expended energy in drawing barrier 1 and hunting up to hold off all challengers and drawing barrier 20 settling midfield and going to the lead when they settle....if the jockey is skilled enough.

A bad jockey will get pratted 4 and five wide from barrier 20, or in the first instance race a no hoper in barrier 2 just to hold the lead at all costs.

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Nope. Was referring to the average punter generally. No one in particular Dr ron. Sorry if I gave [anyone] that impression.

Chrome, Even the Beadmens are often forced to 'ride for luck' when they get a bad barrier for the horses they are on [why back them in those situations?].
Where good Jockeys are important, is like you point out being able to 'rate' a race and take the breaks and cracks and turn them to advantage. Mid-pacers often need a good jock to stay in a handy position and sure, sometimes a good jock is 6 times more important than barriers and at other times 4kg claiming newbies can look like champions and bring home the bacon.

The best thing for punters who don't know the ins and outs of a horse's running style [check over their past races and where they were at the turn for a good hint as to their running style], is to only back horses with good jockeys on them. That's an edge thats better than nothing. For those punters, jockeys are 10 times more important than barriers because they really are betting for luck.