Fox don't get me wrong - I love systems. Always have. I love them because they offer fresh hope if you've had a losing day. You can go from being miserable as your get out in the last hides away in the back of the field to being ecstatic at about midnight that night as you are still up, swigging vodka straight from the bottle, wearing just boxer shorts and endlessly tweaking the rules.

I love systems because they are the promise of SOLVING IT, of BEATING it in one fell swoop.

I love systems for these reasons and always come back to inventing them because frankly it's fun, too. I love systems, I have just never actually believed they can win.

Doing the form is such a grinding way to win compared to them. Don't get me wrong, I love doing the form too. Tonight I thoroughly enjoyed doing full form for three races at Ballarat tomorrow which I will be value betting. I enjoyed the challenge and the thought process involved, but the yin to this yang is the system, where you don't have to think of the horses each as individuals and know what they can do and can't do.

I love the form when it works out, too. Like on Saturday I had been busy on Friday and wasn't that keen on Flemington anyway so just did Makybe Diva's race only, in Sydney. She was an absolute certainty for mine, and after I examined each runner with my weight ratings applied, it bore it out. Over 2400m, she was a certainty. Over 2000m, Grand Armee would've been a certainty. This is something a system could NOT have grasped, but of course the mind can.

I think overall I love systems because if you find one that wins it means you can have that most lovely thing - a daily punt - without having the endless grind of form. Trust me, you don't want to do the form every day. I love the form, but really try to restrict myself to just Wed and Sat (plus specials like public hols) so I don't burn out. When I do go and do too much form I get sloppy and end up LOSING on badly made bets. When I stay fresh I do the form RIGHT and I WIN because of it.

But I do like the daily punt, even if it's just a smaller bet on a couple of chances that a system throws up. That's why I try to find one.

As I said in another post, my grandfather used to keep piles of the Sporting Globe and would be endlessly going through them to try and find a winning system. He was no mug, either. In Phar Lap's Melb Cup he had $2000 pounds on the great horse at something like 8/11, won about 1550 pounds. Work that out to todays currency with inflation etc. He bought a mansion in Toorak from that.

But he never found the pot of gold sys. My old man has spent much of his life doing the same. I don't want to be that way. I do firmly believe that to have an edge long term you need to do the form properly and - VERY IMPORTANT - bet properly.

With that in mind I sort of expect this system I have invented to fall over. However, it has something going for it - it is based around my weight ratings. They are great ratings and are obviously not something anyone bar me (and my wife should she wish to use them, which she doesn't! and my 1yr old girl, who isn't yet saying "quinella" or "trifecta" but will) has access to, so that angle and edge may enable them to win.

At any rate, I am going to bet the selections it throws up, give them their chance. Mind you I won't be outlaying as much on them as I do on my value betting though. But, in time, should it continue, who knows.....

At the time of writing, the research I have done on them, using SP prices, comes up with these stats:

selections - 407
Winners - 129
s/r - 32%
collect - 620
profit - 213
%pot - 52%
ave win price - $4.80

As I said, that's on SP. So, over that time, even just say betting maxi div I think the POT would be higher.

Maybe it'll fall down. I'll find out because I'll give it the great test run - with the dollars down, the chips in.