Yes I agree Chrome. What a horse was winning 12mths ago means jack diddly, but there it is in most form guides, w% , p% and average prize-money ....for the horse's whole career an no mention of the last 12 mths.

Miss Mooney Mooney the short priced favorite in the C6 R2 at Ipswich was a very good example of how misleading form guides can be. A 5yr. old mare with $127,750 prize money and a 2nd to Virage De Fortune in a G2 WFA at M.Valley, average earnings of $11,614 and now running in a humble C6 at Ipswich with J. Taylor on board
Of course the best early odds offered were around $2.40 and by race time punters were all over it and it duly went out at $2.10 fav. to the great joy of all bookies !!

What punters didn't see in their form guide was the horse took 9 starts to win it's maiden at Gosford and only then just fell over the line by less than 1/2 a length [15/5/05] and has never won a race since. 12 starts later and there it was shorter than a Gold Coast mini ! It finished 9th. from 11 runners.
Sacking all horses who haven't won for 12mths. is a good idea and if a form guide doesn't go back that far get one that does is my advice to any punter.

Unless punters do plenty of digging and hard work there is no way to win at this game. If it was easy it would be impossible to get a bet on let alone get into a race track. There are very good tools [form services] available for handicapping or system building but they are not free. They do however pay for themselves as far as I'm concerned.

Free sites are available sure, but you need time and energy to visit a lot of them to gather enough basic info. to make intelligent selections for 1 race, let alone a whole card. Most punter's bets [and they often have heaps of them] are based on a much larger slices of luck than they realize. Money down the drain is the long term result. I don't mind though, as the less winners the bigger the payouts :-))