One of the basic truths about quinella betting is that you will rarely get a 'value' dividend when striking the quinella with longer-priced horses. The statistics show that these combinations usually pay well below their expected 'true' odds.

Yet the lower-priced quinella combinations will, on average, pay better than their real odds. Why is this so? Well, it's simply because the majority of punters tend to steer away from the shorter priced horses when taking quinellas, because they reckon there's no value in the divvies.

How wrong can they be? The average punter chases longer-priced horses in the hope of getting value, and even if he scores he is likely to reap a quinella dividend that 'robs' him of the true odds. And yet those despised combinations of well-fancied horses are more than likely to serve up an over-the-odds payout-all because the average punter won't bet them!

In the same way, as I explained in last month's article, the average punter will bet each quinella combination with the same amount of money, despite the fact that each combination has a varying degree of chance. (Refer to my Zero In On Big Q article in the April P.P.M. for more details).

What I'm going to do in this article is explore just a few 'off the cuff' ideas for picking quinella combinations. They should appeal to those punters who like quinella action but who have a tough time choosing the right horses!

Firstly, I suggest that you always include the favourite in any quinella combination you take, and my advice is always to take multiples.

One selection method that has stood the test of time-I can remember an uncle of mine playing it back in the 1950s-is one that brings together some interesting aspects of form. Mat is proposed is that you seek an anchor horse in the quinella, and this is found by looking for a last start course winner. It must be the only last-start course winner in the race. This horse is then coupled with every horse at 10/1 or longer which ran a place at its last start.

An addition to these rules could be one requiring the favourite to be included in the other chances, no n-tatter what its form. With this selection plan, you have a strong 'form and course winner' running for you, and you have a few good value chances as well.

There might not be a great deal of action, because finding that last-start course winner won't be all that easy. But you should find enough of them to maintain a nice flow of bets if you dabble in betting on Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Your next step, having ascertained your selections, is to bet them correctly. If possible, try to 'price' them to true odds. If you cannot do this, one way of attacking the problem is to lop a point off each horse's pre-post price.

Thus, your banker horse might be quoted at 5/1, so you assume it's a 4/1 chance. You may have three other value runners with which to link it, along with the favourite. Let's say the other four runners are 12/1, 14/1, and 20/1 and the favourite is 2/1.

Your linkups, then, would be Banker 4/1, with Horse A 11/1, Horse B 13/1, Horse C 19/1 and Horse Favourite evens. Using a credible table of quinella chances and odds, you would discover the following expected 'true' quinella odds:

Banker 4/1 with Horse A (4/1 into11/1) odds 24/1
Banker 4/1 with Horse B (4/1 into13/1) odds 28/1
Banker 4/1 with Horse C (4/1 into19/1) odds 44/1
Banker 4/1 with Favourite (4/1 into evens) odds 2/1

Now you know exactly where you stand. To aim at winning, say, $50 you would know that you would have to bet approximately $2 on the first combination, $2 on the second, $1 or $1.50 on the third, and have a big bet of $25 on the fourth combination. This is a total outlay of about $30. If you don't want to outlay this amount, you could take the favourite linkup merely as a 'saver' to win you back your stake should it salute; this would require only a $5 bet on it.

This method does not have to be operated with the favourite in the linkups. It's really a play-safe rule on my part. But you may wish to be more adventurous and stick only to the usual rules. In this case, you would, as indicated above, be outlaying only about $5 or $5.50 on the three combinations.

Another good method, recommended to me some years back by an astute friend, is to couple well-known horses in races up to 1600m which are strongly fancied in the betting. What you need to do is look for horses at 5/1 and under who are drawn between barriers 1 and 5.

This is a clever, but simple, selection system that can throw up two or three horses in a race. For instance: At Eagle Farm on March 30 you would have bet on two races only. In the sixth, the selections-~on pre-post markets-were Viscount Flex (barrier 3, 7/2) and Bulgroo Boy (barrier 2, 9/2). They finished 2nd and 3rd at 4/1 and 6/1 respectively, so the system came very close in that race.

In the following race, the three selections were Northern News (barrier 1, 5/1), Grand Bijou (barrier 4, 5/1) and Stated Reason (barrier 5, 7/2). Grand Bijou won the race at 8/1 while Stated Reason ran 2nd at 13/2, the quinella paying $17 on the Queensland TAB. If you had bet straight level stakes you would have had a total of four quinella bets in the two races for a bet of $4 and you got $17 back.

Had you bet to the pre-post odds you would have had the following bets:
Viscount Flex-Bulgroo Boy, 10 units.
Northern News-Grand Bijou, 6 units.
Northern News-Stated Reason, 9 units.
Grand Bijou-Stated Reason, 9 units.
Total stake: 34 units. Total Return: 146.
Profit: 112 units. Betting the same amount at level stakes you would have bet 8.5 units each combination, thus winning just a little less.

Think carefully about these approaches. I am sure they'll help you beat the quinella.

Click here to read Part 1.

By Statsman