Nanook. Very interesting results; especially that you are using 8 weeks as a "spell". In the Sportsman they use the terms "Spell", "Let-Up" etc for the varying breaks a horse has. This is fertile ground as I often look at the trainers who space the runs a bit, without actually putting the horse away in the paddock OR who put them away for 4-8 weeks.. This is frowned-upon by many punters (especially those who follow systems with "Must've run in past 14 days/21 days/4 days" etc etc as a rule) as "breaks" are seen as indicative of "problems". Sometimes, however, a trainer has a more "fragile" horse which the trainer 'knows" needs rests between races (ie from experience) and will only put that horse back on the track when he/she is "sure" it's ready to perform. Alternately there are trainers who "push" their horses from the First Up start to win QUICKLY. These trainers already know their horse will be needing a "let-up" but calculate this into the campaign.
JFC. If you look at racing from several angles AT ONCE, you can be amazed how you get the "whole picture" and then find leads to other interesting (and profitable) ideas. Since we already had our Gai Waterhouse mix-up elsewhere AND I mentioned it there, I'll repeat an observation: look at the races where the "Big Trainer" get longshot winners and work out why the public were ignoring them (the trainer) that day.
This whole thing with Barbara Joseph came about simply because I mentioned her as a First Up Sydney specialist (in passing). Nanook has looked further into it and discovered she is a First Up specialist IN GENERAL. That's the nature of all progress.You are obsessed with "one thing at a time", he said/she said instead of trying to discover WHERE that "one thing" might lead. Just for a while, you could perhaps give us some of your "observations" (rather than "stats" I mean) about racing, so we could look into them. Thanks