G'day Barny, First of all absolutely no offence meant, and without "beer eyes" now; maybe "by default" was the wrong expression.

What I was getting at; is sometimes you can stumble onto something , an idea or whatever just by pure luck, without having set out to achieve it particularly.

My mate Eddie that I mentioned like a lot of successful people went on to brag about how clever he'd been, when in fact the real reason for his success was completely out of his control.

Conversely as you say you have to be there for the "luck" to happen!

In our mad rush to develop the "winning" system some of us fail to consider that AT BEST one will have on average 70 losers per 100 bets.(Av Fav Strike rate..)over the long term.
Ones price will need to be very good to overcome that disadvantage.

In the very short term some will make a quick profit then fail.Others no profit at all.

As a intellectual exercise its fun but far better to put your money in a bank or credit union.

Dont want to put a dampener on the fun side but thats the reality of the punting world.

Cheers
darky

Excellent post Darky. My sentiments exactly.

partypooper, by default is spot on actually. Nothing wrong with that at all. Some threads I reckon I've read up to 20 times, and some select posters I've read and re-read.

I think the reasons most systems fall over is lack of logic.
Far too many rules are another reason too, and the integrity of the data and the volume of the sample.

Chrome Prince has been banging on about getting the best possible price for long enough. That's logical ..... and fairly easy to do, but not everyone does it do they?

And if it was that easy Barny there wouldn't be any betting at all. Now that IS logic.

That's ONE element Bernie ..... which is easy to do.

It's not part of any system as such.

also sr7 11
mr7 3
qr5 4
ar1 4
pr3 1
they either win or they dont ,no particular logic behind it but in keeping with
minimum rules its a start

Sort of gone off topic a little but we now have Darkydog & Bernie as unable to find any long term winning system. Darkydogs systems, of which there have been hundreds postd on here, are ALL form or ratings based. Darkydog has been following the races for a long time and has been a proponent of ratings, LSW etc, etc. Also one other poster from long, long ago called crash, who seemed to have an extensive knowledge of handicapping, admitted to losing.

Can't understand why you wouldn't change tack after a while. My base rule of no-form is looking good. Can't say more than that 'coz this is a general systems "discussion" and any claims of success will be howled down.

I would suggest, just for the purposes of discussion that your first rule for any system should be "non-form based". There's absolutely no point having your first rule as Must have been placed no worse than 4th in it's past four runs. Reason being is that 1) Your brain is continually being wired to stats in a world where the unknown frequently takes charge, and throwing a blanket of stats over individual animals suggests they're all the same, which they're not and 2) It closes your mind and limits the possibilities of exploring other areas and 3) You've just ruled out 95% of the horses running on the day and 4) You are really limited to what other systems you can attach to the statistically based first rule.

If you have to ask what a "non-form based" rule (other than the usual M, S B, A) I rest my case. For those who've been unsuccessful try changing your thinking. Why persist if it's not working? Don't want to sound smug, but why would you keep banging your head against a brick wall.

Nearly all systems on here start with the obligatory M, S, B, A BUT NOT country tracks ..... WHY? There's as big a difference between the quality of Metro summer racing and the Spring Carnival as there is between the quality of Metro summer racing and country tracks. How does winter racing stack up against the Spring Carnival? I don't think I've ever seen a discussion on here about breaking your systems up to suit the season, the better horses, the strugglers depending on what time of year it is. I don't believe you can run one system and ask it to be successful all year.

Barny again you are going around in circles. Spell out the way you win on the horses. Give the facts not theory. You always seem to evade the question for some reason. Post some selections to prove your point.



FYI I changed tack years ago. I have found that the most successful systems I create are those with few rules, but include horses with a barrier draw of 5 or higher which were unplaced last start.

Barny,

Thats a form rule. You are looking at better quality (thus form and class). Everything falls back to class and/or form.

I think what you are trying to compare is Horse specific data vs non-horse specific data ? Otherwise I have no idea what a non-form thing is.

Barrier = form,
Track = form
Trainers = form
jockeys = form
time of year = form
temperature = form
fitness = form
class= form

Everything comes back to how a horse will run in todays race which is its form.

Just asking as I would love to know at least one non-form factor. But if it contirbutes to how a horse might run today then it is a "form" factor.