From what I can see, the privateer did not post a set of rules. He posted a set of stats that formed the basis of his system. The theory behind his system was to get rid of the 80% of the rules that only gave 20% of the return and keep the 20% from where 80% of the money came from. He saw no value in the fav. One of his sayings was that the horse did not have to come first to win. Hence he found more value in place betting and he stressed many times 1 x 3 EW betting. The only two points that I can think of are 92% of winners come from shortening horses, or 92% of winners are under their true odds. The latter saying that if you backed any of the winners long term you would end up in the poorhouse. Hence the point of the stat was to say look for value other than the winner. And everybody looks at the winner even for a place. He is looking for a placegetter that could also win. He saw value in a proven placegetter with proven peak fitness in quality races with quality fields. Beton