Hi all,

Thanks for your comments.

Hopefully put to bed now and we can get on with this business of grafting a profit.

Have a fine evening and let's slay the bookies tomorrow!!

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The Schmile

"I buy when other people are selling.”
― J. Paul Getty

My grandfather on the paternal side and one of his mates ran the Crown and Anchor game on one of the ships on the way back from the Middle East during WW2.
I know for a fact he would not have been offended, quite the contrary I suspect.

I do believe we are getting a touch paranoid of late.

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Jose'.

TS, couple of my thoughts that may help, all imho of course -

- I dont pay too much attention to the number of starts an older horse has had provided the win strike rate (as opposed to place strike rate) does not stink the place up - lot's of older consistent gallopers have had plenty of starts because they need the racing to be competitive & thrive on it (as an aside, over raced younger horses are more likely to be a risk)

- I prefer my oldsters in a provincial environment rather than in the big smoke, but there are always exceptions.

- A reasonable average prizemoney ranking in today race is a required element, & I usually avoid them early in a prep without a solid history to suggest they can perform well early.

- Mares, you do see the odd old mare doing laps...think Richard Dreyfuss in Let It Ride asking everyone what they like & crossing them out

- Moving away from systems - a smart trainer & jockey combo can work wonders - R.Thompson & Youthful Jack one of the more obvious recent examples (another aside, Thompson must surely be knighted once he hangs up his whip with 4000 winners now on the horizon)

My last thought is that older horses still win their fair share of races, so to ignore them is to ignore a potential profit source.


edit - agree with jose comments above

The independent variable "CAREERSTARTS" (number of career starts) used to be one of the most important independent variables in Mr. William Benter's multiple logistic regression model (T-Ratio = -9.98, coefficient estimate = -.0143).