I suppose i could share my interest in racing and where it started.

We have to go back to about 1989, up until then i only had a passing interest in the punt like every one else when the Melbourne Cup came around.

I had a girlfriend who's family were right in to the punt so every Saturday i would be down the TAB with her father and brothers watching the races.

This went on for months while i learned the in and outs of racing and form.

It was about this time that i came across PPM i used to buy that mag for about 10 years, despite what a lot say about PPM you can learn a lot from reading it and working out the systems that were worth looking in to from the junk.

One system that comes to mind and is the basis of all my ratings ideas was called "Form Book Power" they used what they called impact values where they looked at all the runners with certain form lines to work out the percentage of those horses that won.

Example.
Days
1 - 5 = 1.30
6 - 10 = 1.67
11 - 14 = 1.32
15 - 21 = 1.22
22 - 30 = 1.07
31 up = 0.65

They had these values for different form lines and all you need to do was multiply them together to find the best rated horse.

this was back in 1995 when ratings were not really used and i could come up with some huge winners.

I also used a form of Don Scott's weight and class ratings along with another set of ratings from PPM that focused on form, fitness and weight.

It was not unusual to get 20-1 winners every day of the week.

It is funny how we remember the wins but not the losses.

I backed Oompala in a G1 race when it won at 66-1
One Saturday I backed Chortle in Brisbane at over $60, i can remember i was on holidays and in some crowded pub and was jumping up and down screaming at the TV when it came down the middle of the track, people were asking how the ******** i picked that.

There were many other winners but these were the two i remember.

Back then i tried a lot of crazy things like the Martingale system backing favs and double up on the losers until a winner came, it worked for awhile and i made good money until the run of losers came, luckily i seen where it was going and quit before i lost it all back.

I never thought there was any funny business that went on in racing but i remember a horse way back then called Hayley's Belle trained by R H Thompsen.

I seen this thing one Saturday at Rosehill as a maiden that gave a fantastic run in some race that had some good horses of the day.

I decided to follow it at it's next few starts, well i followed this thing for ages and it never did a thing, got a few placed but that's it.

Can't remember the date but it was in a race on new years day and i was down the local TAB chatting to this nice teller operator about it as she had seen me back it a few times before, i told her if it don't win soon i will be sacking it.

Well as things happen i went out that night and didn't wake up until about 2pm and didn't get a bet on it, so checking the paper the next day i see it won and paid like $120 for the win, man did i feel sick.

Couple days later down at the local TAB and the nice teller chick tells me i left my book in there the other day and hands it to me, i am confused to say the least, i open up the pages to see all this cash between each page, something like 3k, she tells me that i won't see her for a month as her and the boyfriend are off the Queensland for holidays and thanks for the tip.

I never did see this horse run again and asked Mr Thompson once when i seen him at that racing expo they had in Sydney about it, he made an excusde he had to leave.

I guess these are just the things that happen in racing.

About 10 years ago i found this forum and have shared many ideas with members while at the same time learning what others do always trying to make it in the big time.

8 years ago i came across a very smart guy named Stuart he explained to me about his ideas and the maths behind them.

He was not a form kind of guy and more a numbers person and from that time i have looked at punting from the maths side, i still look at form and have done recent work with ratings but always with the main goal in mind, to beat the game with numbers.

There are a few people on this forum over time that have influenced my ideas, Mark and Chrome Prince to just name 2.

As much as my background is in form and ratings i feel that with so much information around today that to succeed on the punt you need to look at other areas.