You should use the PowerPicks reports as a scratch pad to highlight your conclusions about each horse in a race. The horses are listed in order based on the overall points awarded each contender during the handicapping process. Individual criteria such as jockey, trainers and running times for each horse are displayed on the report with a numeric prefix indicating their ranking compared to other contenders in the race. The primary purpose of using the report is assist you in developing a "feel" for how the race will be run and to separate the contenders from the pretenders.
The report includes win, place and show statistics by rank (Rank % column) for each race based on past races of a similar track, distance, surface and class. The top ranked horse will normally win between 20% to 40% of the time and will be in-the-money 50% to 70% of the time. The top ranked horses as a group will always produce more wins and in-the-money finishes than the bottom ranked horses.
That depends on your wagering strategy. Many of the top ranked horses will also turn out to be heavy favorites and consequently provide little return unless used in the exotics. It is beyond the scope of the PowerPicks report by itself to recommend one wagering strategy versus another. However, if you are looking for value plays then you should focus on those horses who "stand-out" on the reports for one reason or another regardless of whether they are the top ranked horse.
Nothing as far as the content on the reports but you will find the PDF version quicker to download due to its smaller size and easier to use because of the printing limitations for the HTML version. The PDF format was created by Adobe as an easy way to distribute reports via the web. It requires the Acrobat Reader plug-in for your web browser and is available free from Adobe (click here).
The HTML report must be printed in landscape mode or you will lose part of the report. The web browser includes a menu item called Page Setup which will allow you to set the printer to landscape versus portrait (default). Unfortunately, you will need to do this again when you re-start the browser as it sometimes reverts to the default setting of Portrait. A better solution overall is to download and use the PDF version instead of the HTML version of the reports.