Jose

I understand what you're getting at and in a small way we can see that from the improved strike rate of our top selection on Good and Dead tracks. I've observed that a couple of the ratings services (Neurals mainly but also Sky to some extent) often over estimate the effect of returning from a spell. If I was to do this again I'd certainly set days last raced to zero in the Neurals. As we've pretty much operated this within the months you mentioned I look forward to an improved strike rate in the coming months

Without pre-empting the findings at all I think I can say that the market must be respected and when the money is not there for our selection, or it comes for another lower ranked selection then our crowd have probably missed something. I think we'll find that there's a point where our overlay becomes a liability and we shouldn't go over.

I think the optimum size of the "crowd" in this exercise is probably from 3 to 5. My feeling is that as we add more members the benefits will start to diminish until eventually our crowd will really just reflect the market which although being the most accurate crowd, is tough to make a profit from.

With this in mind my view is that ratings and the prices we derive from them are really only useful in the way we can use them to influence the size our bet's. I feel some hold ratings in much higher regard than is warranted, especially in modern markets as opposed to the Don Scott market's of the 50's, 60's and 70's. To this end I don't believe in the conventional interpretation of overs or unders. I don't think a 3/1 rated horse starting at 5/1 has been missed by the market. It's just a 5/1 horse that we're hoping will run as a 3/1 horse. If we win on this "overlay" it isn't because we were right and everybody else was wrong, it's just that we've profited from variance and luck

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Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash