I thank Barny for his reply and have to add the following. I am of the thinking now of not trying to overthink and second guess the trainer. I do not worry about days last start any more and have not done so for awhile.

My thinking is that one of my system rules sort of eliminates an incompetent trainer or the horse is good enough to overcome that handicap. Not many horses back up within seven days any more. Many, many years ago a few used to race twice in the one day, but they were hardier then, but breeding has produced a faster but less hardier horse, so we have had to adjust our thinking also.

But Barny's last snippet, is it his last? should be enshrined here forever,

" THINK $ DIVIDEND ALWAYS. "

"This, may well be his finest hour. "

Thank you Barny.

Star

Nice. Might be a good read over my holidays. Do you use any of these concepts.

Built into my rating and allocated different values for different classes and distances, sometimes ignored altogether.

Many good first up winners over 1600 M coincidentally also picked by DS BRR on R&S.

Generally horses backing up after 7 days for 1000m will make a LOT of 23.8% (11.3%SR)

1st up - LOT 13% SR10%
2nd up - LOT 34% SR11%
3rd up - LOT 2% SR14%
4th up - LOT 34% SR12%
5th up - LOT 38% SR12%
6th up - LOT 24% SR12%
7th up - LOT 13% SR14%

Thanks Vortech,

Interesting the horse with 2 runs under its belt gives the "best" return.

What I found interesting was that the equal second worst performers were each side of the best performer.
This suggests these are raw figures and of next to no use for a punter as they stand.

Are they the Barry Blakemore books about fitness patterns you're referring to? What do you think of them, the books, and the whole concept of fitness patterns?

I've read some people slagging his books and concepts off because of a supposedly too small sample size and some people praising them.

Thanks,
Peter

A bit like around here. hehe

__________________
Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”

― Earl Nightingale

Yes those are the ones. On its own it's obviously not a clear cut winning system but it's a very good elimination method.

Points to horses not ready or passed their best or about to perform.
As always in racing it's not a foolproof standalone method if it was we'd never heard of it.

From memory Neil Yardly had it in his PricePredictor or Betselector at one stage. Maybe he still does?

I use them but it took a lot of testing to work out where and when they are of value.

After all these years I only found three and only three closely guarded standalone filters that are profitable on their own. Unfortunately they are mutually exclusive.

There may be more but you'd have to use a different approach to testing I simply can't think of a new way, not that I need to, hasten to add.
My rating works well enough, basically unchanged since 1990.

Good luck

Yeah well .... ha ha!! (can't get the smiles to work on my clapped out old computer)

That's good to know, at least all these seperate bits of knowledge may come in handy over the long term, just knowing which bits are worth considering.

More than likely. I can't see and wouldn't expect anybody to give away their winning ideas to all and sundry as they probably wouldn't remain too profitable for long, then again, as somebody else on here remarked you could probably write a winning system on the footpath outside Randwick and most punters would either ignore it or give it away after it's first losing run. I think there maybe some truth in that too.
So maybe some of the fitness pattern concepts have merit, just a matter of refining them a bit, or a lot.

Good to hear that you've got a method that's stood the test of time lomaca, gives me some hope at least. I've read a couple of Blakemore's books, I think some of his stuff is redundant since they changed the class ratings system but good to know some is worth considering.

Thanks