You've touched on something that I've regarded as the great insoluble conundrum for years, Grendel. Your betting methods and mine seem (at least broadly) comparable, and I'd be interested in your views about whether to move early or late.
Putting it simply, there seems no doubt that taking an early price will always have the 'value' edge over SP, or over waiting until they're practically in the stalls before betting. If anything, this has become even more true in the past year or so, when the big bookmakers are, for all practical purposes, declaring their their own SPs now that the old track-based system has collapsed. I'll accept that there's a small upside to this in the sense that winners returned at 100-1 and more aren't the once in a blue moon event they used to be so, if you like outsiders, you're probably getting a slightly better deal as a result of the squeezing of the top two or three in the market. When I started racing, you never saw anything returned at more than 33-1 outside the Grand National, the Derby, and a handful of high-profile handicaps.
The other side of the coin is your experience with LFA today; roughly, if you want to see how a horse looks and behaves, take account of late going changes, or note whether important connections are present in the flesh or not, you have to wait until the course market is pretty much formed. I took the view a while ago - reluctantly - that I'd rather wait and miss the price than go in early and gradually realise that I've backed a no-hoper. This view's been reinforced by noting how (polite word) 'volatile' last-minute betting markets are at the winter AW meetings.
All this touches slightly on the 'collapse' in Adayar's Derby price, given that no one admits to having backed him. Any thoughts on that ?
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