Hi Barny it's The Schmile here,

I fear from this post that you might be taking a cynical approach to your handicapping, with comments such as 'That will never happen', when referring to making money on the first four horses in the market. The fact is that professional punters make a profit in backing the shorter commodities, it's a matter of how they bet and they type of horses they invest on.

The thing that makes horse racing so intriguing for me and I'm sure many others, is that handicapping is almost never an exact science. For instance, two horses can meet each other multiple times over their careers and each time their relative chances will be different, depending on track, distance, stage of preparation etc.

Favourites win around one-third of all races, meaning that they also LOSE the other two-thirds, resulting in many opportunities for a profit to be made. The official handicapper makes mistakes, as do the bookmakers themselves and it's our job as punters to find these opportunities.

If you can find a system that can make a profit with little to no effort then all power to you. I do think you're on the right track trying to go against the pack in your thinking and it's how well you apply your ideas from this point, that will determine your success.

A word of advice:
Don't write off ratings, as there are some superb ratings out there. They aren't as effective in certain types of races, 2/3yo races for example, as there is often not enough exposed form out there to truly gage each horses chance. Also, these horses can improve dramatically run to run and in the instance of weak 2yo provincial/country races, they are often inconsistent as the horses themselves are usually inconsistent. The ratings world is not confined to just Unitab and racingandsports, dig deeper.

Finally, I'm not sure where you found this comment, 'We’re told, for instance, the topweight is always unders …..Why do we assume that ??' as it is simply not true. In theory, every horse starts unders because the market is set above 100%, topweights are not different.

I hope this is of some assistance, probably not, but I feel better! ha ha

Just kidding Barney, I felt you were yearning for some stimulating input and while this is info you've probably heard already, it helps to go over any angle that may give you an edge, whether new or not.

Cheers,

The Schmile