All,

When deciding on horses to lay there are 2 ways you can go about the analysis. The first is to compare the horse you want to lay to the field. You are essentially determining the horses overall chances of winning the race.

The other way which I am coming to like is to only analyse 2 (or 3) horses. This reduces the work required and lets face it you are not trying to pick the winner of the race, you are just trying to pick a horse that will lose.

The advantages of doing this are :
1. Concentrate your effort on 2 horses so there is more thorough analysis.
2. Your not confused by the amount of stats you look through with each horse.
3. Saves time.
4. Sometimes you could be wrong and still turn out a winner as something else in the field wins.

The disadvantages are :
1. Which two horses to pick ?
2. Odds could be large if you pick longer prices horses.

If you stick to the prepost favs or at least in the top 4 of the prepost prices then you should be sticking to horses with the acceptable laying odds.

I have started to look at the top 2-3 prepost horses and am working out a beaten lengths difference that I think will occur. I have found I am much more accurate doing this type of analysis then when I was looking at the entire field. Of course if I am trying to find the winner then I will need to look at the whole field.

What are everyone else's thoughts on this process ?

Good Luck.