G'day Privateer,

It does feel like I've fallen off the planet a bit...been so busy lately.

I had been feeling a little guilty that I haven't really contributed very much to this forum in terms of offering system builders possible angles. And though I love the process involved in trying to nut out system rules for a potential system, I just don't get much free time these days to do much full-on research. So I just wanted to post a couple of potential system rules that others might find useful.

One of the keys to any system is finding value. So the question is what are some things your average punter is going to look at in the form guide that might sway his bets one way or another, but are really either irrelevant in the outcome of the race, or if they do suggest a result, they are so overbet, there's just no value left in the selection (a system with a 50% strike rate is absolutely useless if the average price is $2.00 or less).

Here's a short list I've come up with:

Widest Barrier - they think a horse can't win from the widest barrier, so avoid it, which generates some value.
Lowest TAB #'s - they think the winners will only come from near the top of the list, and forget those near the bottom, which generates value in those lower TAB #'s.
Highest Money Earner - they overbet the horse with the highest prizemoney earned, which leaves no value.
Favourites - they overbet the favs, especially when they're trying to dig themselves out of a hole, so there's no value left.
Down in Class/Prizemoney - they overbet those horses that are coming down in class, thinking that well if they just raced against a better mob of horses last start, then surely it can knock off this lot, which results in no value for the selection. This one needs some consideration. If you were a trainer and confident in your horse that just raced in a $75,000 race, would you want it's next race to be for $100,000 or $50,000? In my mind, when a horse is coming down in class, it's because the trainer has little confidence in it, and is trying to compensate for that by giving it a lower field to race against. Regardless, these horses are usually overbet, and there's no value in them.

Anyone else have any tips for system builders to incorporate into their systems?

Anyway, thanks for your message Privateer. It's good to hear from you. Hope you have a good day today mate.

Regards,
Joel

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...time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the sea. - Dylan Thomas