Hi Brett,

I didn't want to hijack your thread, so I replicated your post above in order to put forward our thoughts on Systems and Ratings. I will first explain the differences and then address some of your actual questions/statements. I am aware that most, including yourself, have a firm grasp on what the differences are but in trying to make this helpful for others to come I'll take it down to the most lowest common denominator; someone with no knowledge at all.

Ratings are;
Numerical expression of performance, (well said Brett). These values MUST be applied consistently to all horses in order for the method to have merit. What ever the ideology used; be it Time converted to a rating, Class converted to a rating, Consensus of tipsters or any other user defined elements they are always applied the same way. The result is, in theory, that such rating allows its user to compare individual horses against each other even when these horses never raced against each other. Rating should be able to bring together and compare horses from different states, distances, class, weights and even countries for instance. For most part they work, but by their virtue some elements might be too different to compare! Example might be a rating that assigns points for beaten margin. It works until the distances of the races get too dissimilar. A length over 1000m is different to a length over 3200m; it is more critical over shorter distance. The skill is to create ratings that can better level out these differences such as the ones found in Axis.

Systems are;
Selective processes that EXCLUDE contenders. As such systems can't compare horses directly, they can only produce selections based on a method that eliminates (filters) majority of horses based on that users method leaving only the 'likely to win' contenders. So while a rating can compare horses against each other in a race, system eliminates undesirable horses. System can be based on a Rating, or any other form element available to the user. Obviously there are some similarities; ability to apply all filters consistently, without errors and emotion would be the main one.

Ratings and Systems coming together;
Despite the best intention of the system creator some factors are just about impossible to compensate for. Take for instance races with un-raced or lightly races horses, too many first up horses in a race and so on these situations create unfavorable conditions for the rating to perform at its best ; there are just too many unknowns. As a result these type of races should be eliminated. One can use a system for that; where by all horses from a race are eliminated using a RACE type filter. The rest of the system may then, for instance, select the top Rated horse in each race from all the races that are favorable. This quickly isolates the main chances and allows the punter to concentrate on horses that have potential to win rather then wasting his time plowing through the form for all of the horses only to come to the same conclusion hours later.

The above simple scenario can be greatly refined using Axis, where we have 13 ratings available. This works like using telephone towers to triangulate a position of a phone in spy movies. The more ratings agree (consensus) on a horse, the better its chances are, this is mainly because Axis provides ratings that provide different angles. Using a system to triangulate a horse like that quickly allows to isolate the best chances; why would you waste time on the others? Obviously these simple scenarios involve additional work by video replay or other form of study to finalise the contender list. Most professional punters work along these lines; create a short list and then finalise bets on additional work.

Other uses of system include the more widely accepted and contested idea that a system can just pinpoint horses without form study.

I'll try to explain this second use of systems in the next installment.

__________________
Michal - Ratings2Win Pty Ltd
R2W Axis - Axis is Australia's leading horse racing software and database;
with sophisticated form analysis tools and accurate horse performance ratings for TAB meetings.
http://www.ratings2win.com.au/