Dale and all, just my 2cents worth, we all know there is some truth in what Giutar says as we have all had the system that works only to fall in a hole.

Conversly I feel that some so called system rules are PROVEN commonsense and NOT anomalies such as 30% of favs win (stats going back to the 1800's) of course that means that 70% don't. But also 70-80% of all handicaps are won by one of the top six. Horses racing within 21 days have a much better strike rate (straight out fitness, not an anomaly) Horses that have a win in the last four starts have a definite statistical S/R, horses with a place S/R of 50% or more seem to keep on doing it.

I won't go on but, etc etc, what I'm getting at is that you can narrow down the likely result by "form" and commonsense filters to gain an advantage. Technically it would be a system, but all the parameters based on commonsense, not anomalies.

In fact you could argue that the Handicapper himself is using a system to arrive at the final field in weight order.