Pipedreamer

Yes, race 4 was the Imperial cup. First of all I should say that I never look at the odds until after i've done my analysis. So when I say I chose the favourite, it should read that the horse that I thought the astrology showed best turned out to also be the bookies favourite. I am only just starting to incorporate the nodes so wouldn't have registered the problem with them.

I do it on the balance of the aspects to the race chart with the most important aspect being the close applying aspects to the MC.

Ashkazar had mars applying to the race MC supported by a close though separating saturn sextile ( which suggested that it wouldn't tire too easily)
The race MC was also trine race saturn and the horses progressed sun conjunct uranus, although opposite the race saturn, was still picking up the strenth of mars and pluto so on balance it looked strong.

Then the race MC was ruled by Venus which was conjunct Neptune and within orb of the horse's natal sun and mercury.

Other aspects that were good were race uranus cojoining horse progressed moon and sextiling natal moon ( although of course I can't be sure as I don't have times and use noon),

In this case the other horses that looked ok on the same principles were:
Victram ( which came 4th)
Mohayer ( similar to ashkazar but without the moon aspects )-which was a Non runner by the time I placed my bet.
Palomar (jupiter sectile MC) 6th
Pilca - which had a Jupiter cojoining the race MC - but ended up at back of field
Callisto Moon - with a few planets sextile the MC = though with some less attractive aspects to the outer planets 5th

However I didn't pick up the second and third, Fredenborg and Albinus at all - i though they had too many squares, though Albinus did have prog sun uranus conjunctrace Neptune.

At the other end of the field I had
Alph - just a "no" due to a bad uranus aspect
Mon Michel - another "no" MC aspects
Mex Bob -again "no": no aspects
Border castle - I had as tricky- but better than the other low rated ones.

Most of the rest I had as ok/some promise/maybe ok etc- but nothing that stood out - as it proved.

Regarding your question about the Scoop6 - yes, especially in the last few weeks I have quite a few charts where I couldn't narrrow the field down enough. Either all bad horses, all indifferent or all reasonably good. I certainly wouldn't be betting on those individual races. If I wasn't doing the study this season I wouldn't have placed any money on the Scoop6 in the last month actually - but i wanted a full set of auditable data.

Fortunately my astrological currency betting is a lot more rewarding ( 100% success rate) so I have plenty of funds to cover this little project.

Next year I'll continue with Scoop6 but only place bets in the weeks that I am getting strong signals.

However I should say that there are some races, not so many but some, where I think I am getting answers but then I find I have it completely wrong. As I say , not so many , but I 've yet to work out what the problem is with these. that's my project for the summer.