Hermes,

Welcome! Just my opinion but if you are only interested in being a hobby punter and have limited time then developing your own rating/elimination system is probably out of the question - it takes a long time! For example I have been working on my current system since around last October and I didn't start betting with it until March. It is now giving me a nice profit but I have put a LOT of time into it. You need to collect a lot of historical data and do many hours of analysis to come up with some ideas - then there is testing, refinement, testing again, etc.

If you are really just after a bit of fun then you could do a lot worse than simply use some of the simple systems described in the forums here (Numerators 5678 system has been working well recently) or follow some of the other selection methods (eg. Equine Investors jockey system or stable system - these take a bit more work as you have to monitor your jockey/stable selection). The other option is the various tipsters posting tips here - Friedman's Outsiders seem to have quite a good payoff from the weeks I have looked at their results - you could go back over all their old posts and check the history yourself.

Whatever you do make sure you set and stick to a budget and keep records of how you go. Best of luck!