I'm annoyed with myself for not rating Noble Red in my topfive. If I had of used his rating from his firstup run I would have had him equal second in my selections, but decided to use his ratingsfrom similar distances in previous preparations. I assumed his first up rating was just one of those unusual ones and decided toignore it. Probably his price put me off. It should teach me to go with my own thoughts rather than the betting publics!!!!!!

Sportz, If i had him rated second, how many points would that have been worth???

That's 30 points, but given that you would have also had Youth in the top 3, that's a total score of 47.5 which would have been the equal 2nd highest score for the race.

I don't believe in looking for ONE magical run to use as a base rating. As I've said before, I like to keep it simple. I ALWAYS use the horse's last run no matter what and then I usually just average that with the horse's highest rating recent run under similar conditions to today. I do something a bit different for horses which are 1st or 2nd up though.

Sportz my man,...
Just give it some time, the way these ratings are going lately it wont be long before i get the 5 big unplacers..(thats definantly not a word)

LOL that's a ripper of a word.....

What's definantly?

Picking five runners to all finish outside the top 5 is very difficult, though I like my chances of being the first to achieve it.

I think we need an opportunity for us all to go out on a limb like Duritz did with Cool Trent and potentially embarrass ourselves. Maybe we could run a "pick a loser" competition. Each Saturday, we could each nominate a horse that we don't think can win. Points could be awarded based on the horse's starting price. For example, someone might nominate a runner to lose, and it duly loses at $3.00(SP). The player would score 33 points. On the other hand, if the horse won, 67 points would be deducted. Just a thought; I'm new here so it might have been done before.

Cheers,
H.

Interesting idea. Personally, I don't really understand the whole 'laying' thing very much and I'm not into saying that this horse WON'T win. I just try to work out what WILL win.

I think that's a great idea Heavyweight. All we need is someone to run it.

Sportz - a note on the laying thing:

Bascially, when you lay a horse, you're a pervert!! Sorry j/k. When you lay a horse, you are essentially being the bookmaker instead of the punter. So, if tomorrow we met at the pub and I said Cool trent couldn't win the hcp it was in, and it was paying $3.0 on the tote, you could say to me "OK, but I really like Cool Trent, can I back it with you?" I would of course say yes, and offer you say $3.50 to entice a bet. Say you had $100 on it with me, that would mean of course that you were backing it at $3.50 with me, to profit $250 should it win. Conversely, it means that I am laying it at $3.50 to you, for a loss of $250 should it win, but a profit of $100 should it win.

That is all straight forward of course. Betfair aren't any different to that, it's just getting your head around it that's the hurdle. If instead of going to the pub you went to Betfair for the imaginary Cool Trent race tomorrow, you might see on the board something like this:

Back Lay
3.0 3.2 3.4 3.5 3.8 4.0
120 500 1200 1000 1120 450

What that means is this. On the left hand side are the best three prices available for you to back Cool Trent at, should you wish to. The best price is closest to the middle, $3.40. The 1200 below it means you can have anything up to $1200 on the horse at that price. That's the combined amount the people who wish to lay Cool Trent at the $3.40 are offering for you to back. Essentially, the people who wish to lay Cool Trent (or play bookie against it) at odds of $3.40 are willing to risk a combined total of $2880 about it winning, ie $2.40*1200 (2.40 being the profit on the bet). On the right hand side are the prices you can lay it at (or play bookie against it) if you think it will lose. The SHORTEST price is the best one for you of course if you are being the bookie on it, and the shortest is $3.50 so you can lay it at $3.50 if you want to.

Basically, that $3.50 that you can lay it at means that someone (or many people) have clicked on and requested odds of $3.50 cool trent, so now the odds are there on the lay side, waiting for someone to lay those odds about cool trent to them.

Does that help?

Duritz.

Yeah. I guess so. Now at least I know what all those numbers mean on that Betfair site. It was like some foreign language to me before now. But I think I'll stick to trying to pick horses to win or place. I don't like the idea of having to pay out extra money on top of my bet if I'm wrong.

If you guys want a 'lay of the day' comp, someone else better run it, I think.

What do you mean Sportz? No one pays out 'extra money' on top of their bet if it is a losing one. Only the winners pay a commission to Betfair, the level of which depends on each individual's turnover.