First race at Mildura, only 6 runners.
First race at Mackay, only 5 runners.
First race at Port Lincoln, only 6 runners.

I wouldn't even think of betting on races like that, unless it was to do the old 'back the whole field' trick, which isn't as stupid as it might sound in fields of 6 or less (especially the first race of the meeting).

Gday Sportz,

and there's the rub... Find me a field of 12 or so with a TRUE odds on fav and I will be ya drink next time I am in Sunny (*choke*) Mackay.. True Odds on favs tend to present in smallish fields..

I actually took odds on on Saturday.. with Grand Armee.. that was just put in take out.. it was not in question.. the horse would have had to have been shot in the straight not to win.. Now NONE of those horses that won today, are within a bulls roar of a horse like Grand Armee, but people are prepared to take the same sort of shorts about them .. and that is where I tend to make my money.. I know a stack of them won today... but my day wasn't all bad there were a couple of nice priced winners during the day and some well backed horses bit the dust .. But over time, If people keep taking odds on they will eventually go broke... and people like Mark and myself will quite gladly take their money... I would be interested if anyone can provide info that shows odds on actually win over time... I am positive that it doesn't.. but as ever will stand corrected if need be.. In my opinion to take odds on the horse has to have pretty well no oposition.. That doesn't happen to often otherwise we would all be miliionaires and all the Tabs would be closed, bookies would be riding pushbikes.....

I have bet 4 in a field of six before today and managed to back the winner at about 18 buck from memory, so what you say is pretty right about small fields.. but that was a pretty arsey bet I reckon..

__________________
Good luck and good punting

xptdriver@hotmail.com

xpt,

Normally sunny up here, but put on a race meeting and down it comes.
No real problems today though.

Am I right in saying that you bet in just about every race? Because certainly if someone backed every single odds-on chance that ever came up, they would definitely lose, but I'm sure there's probably someone out there making a living by picking and chosing only the best ones. A good example was Alinghi a couple of weeks ago. I thought she was brilliant value. She was a total certainty. And I think that was a field of around 13 or 14.

By the way, today in fields of 6 or less there was just 1 successful odds-on fav from 5 races. In fields of more than 6 runners, 6 winners from 6.

I agree with you Sportz...you know me I like value about a horse..
taking the short odds like i have with FNR and Snitzel and even Regal Roller the other day were once upon a time frowned at by me...
But value is value...i still like my long shots as you can see...Quessadilla today was 10/1 ..

value is in the eye of the beholder (or something like that)

Yes, the question is not so much what price a horse is, but does it in fact deserve to be that price or do you think it should be shorter or longer? For instance, on the weekend, Celtric Trial and Regal Roller weren't odds-on, but I reckon they probably should have been.

Sunday night (our time) there was a 2 horse race in the UK. One at around $1.12, the other at around $8. No prizes for guessing which one bolted in.