There seems to be some confusion about the difference between ratings and handicapping. Most ratings out there are mechanical, and mostly done by computer with some sort of excel program. Even simple personal ratings are pretty much mechanical, were points are allocated for certain exposed facts regarding each runner in a race. This is the science of ratings, not the art of handicapping.

There are many factors in handicapping a race that require subjective judgement which makes the task as much an art as a science, requiring many personal judgement calls that can't be quantified in numerical values.

One of the most important aspects of good handicapping and indeed the personal selection process is imagining how a race will pan out in the running for a particular track, distance, barrier and jockey combo. The selection your looking at has the science part well in his favour [won at track and in the condt., weight, class etc], however his running style is a back-marker [or swooper to some punters] and he has drawn barrier 3 in a 1600m race at Doomben in a field of 14 runners.

Now getting into the head of your jockey: Barrier 1 and 5 have natural leaders in them. The horse in 1 is going to easily go up on your inside, but the runner in five is going to go around you and there are 3 on-pacers in the race that are all going to try to move up with these two and then there are several mid-pacers and a couple more back-markers behind you that are going to make it highly likely that you end up boxed in the middle of the pack, at a pace that doesn't suit [at the big Eagle Farm track, it could be a different ball game].
You'll be riding for luck and your name is not Beadman .....No, I'll pass on that selection thank you and wait until an alley is drawn closer to the outside in a race that suits for that runner. Try and put that scenario into numbers you can add up into a rating.

Being able to read a race is where the money is [of course I often get it wrong to]. I painted the race picture for Ice Chariots 2 big group wins in Brisbane [before the race] during the carnival on the other forum page under the OLD Sat. section. He is a natural back-marker and had barrier 17 in both races where there was some good pace on from some quick leaders. My grandmother [long dead] could have brought him home to win from such an easy rider task and perfect situation. Nice odds too and many good handicappers collected easy money.

You can buy those canvases with hundreds of marked areas, each having a number that corresponds to a certain colour and when they are complete, at least from a distance they look OK. However, You wouldn't like to try to make a living from painting them. You'd starve. There is art in Handicapping, not just quantitative science.