Well Becareful I have been laid bare, I really can't find a 'reasoned' answer to your post now can I ?

Cheers.

Oh BC you've done it again :roll:

Having read this forum many times silently over a few months I finally open my big mouth.

The way to win on the horses is to have an edge over the mug punter..that edge is a knowledge of how races are conducted and how horses are assessed ...The Bookies know what they are doing when they set their prices..they have information that allows them to assess a horses chances of winning and set their prices accordingly.
That information is not top secret undercover stuff...most of it is available to us as well..if we knew what to take notice of!.
Forget horse names and numbers or which way the wind is blowing ..that's for the mug punters who kindly lose $ so we can win $.

Statistics can be twisted to suit any purpose so the only value in statistics is to use them to find the important factors.

The guys who come up with the data for the form guides and the ratings know what they are doing as well and I'm not talking about the tipsters in the form guides..I'm talking about the info that may seem dull and not important.

Why reinvent the wheel ?..the hard work has been done and the results of that work presented to us in the form of a form guide and a rating.

The guy who sets the weight for the horses does so according to a well tested formula and the guy who comes up with the ratings does the same...but they are human and any computer programs they use were designed by humans;so there is a human bias there that needs to be counterbalanced with facts.
Those facts are simple....how has the horse performed over its past few races and has it won in todays conditions or at that distance or at that track..use those simple facts to check on the rating and you are halfway to having a system that works well enough to pull a profit.
But wait ..there's more!...What types of races are good to bet on ?...maidens..not likely...filly and mares...I have enough trouble with human female erraticness without betting on a female only horse race.
Short races don't give the good horses enough time to get good position and long races give plently of time for upsets to occur..
Races with only a few horses don't pay places and races with lots of horses lower your chance of picking the winner.

Main venues attract better horses than provincial venues do and the better horses are more reliable in their performance.

As to why systems often fail after a certain length of time...well nothing stays the same ( thank god ),but goes in cycles..those systems that were thrown out the window because they failed for a few months may well work again right now.

The biggest problem with any system that intially works is the user...we find it so hard to be disciplined enough to stick to the system and betting strategy and we go and bet on unsuitable races and over-ride the system with our emotive hunches.

Who here is not guilty of that ?!... I am.

Any system that relies on past statistical factors such as barrier number,number of days since the last win or spell,last finishing position being 7th etc etc will show over a long period of time a cyclic pattern..just like tattslotto does.
Stick to the relevent facts and expert assesments of the horses and the results will be more consistant...as long as you are as well !.
Cheers to all.

For mine there is a lot of wisdom and practical nous in what you have posted, 'Boot. Thanks.

Does anyone know if the bookies all receive some sort of "centralised" info.? Whenever I go to the races they all seem to be relying on some such rather than individually setting a book. Is IAS on Saturdays the only place that we common folk can access that or similar info?

Merriguy,

Bookies more or less use the tote prices from a little TV screen to set their book nowadays. Less than tote and the smaller the meeting the worse their prices. Bookies are quickly becoming irrelevant as there is no longer the punter numbers for them to set a competitive book. Pity.

cheers.

[ This Message was edited by: crash on 2003-12-30 04:52 ]

Thanks for the reply, Crash.

So what you are saying is that they more or less follow the 'common' wisdom of the weight of investment on the particular race?

While there are variations across the three TABs, and these obviously become of more interest as the race start time approaches, is there an agreed common starting point as it were? It would be great as a punter to have that indication (I know IAS gives that info, or similar, on Sats fairly early around noon); but is there a similar starting point for other days/races? Anyone?

Merriguy,

No there is no agreed starting point, but the bookies watch each other. Their prices go up once they see the tote trend.

Most of my on course punting is at country tracks now, and I can only say forget the bookies in the country. I see prices that are half the tote price regularly, especially cup days when there are plenty of inexperienced punters around.

Cheers.