The system once had merit. I don’t know about these days. A few years ago I covered the Magic Millions race on the Gold Coast for Turf Monthly and was having a chat with a number of other well known Racing journalists in the press box. One fellow came in and said "gee you’re going well today Max, four winners from the first five races in Sydney". "That’s good." He said "I wonder who’s doing my tips today?" It obviously wasn’t him, as he too was covering the Gold Coast race.

Racing journalists are paid to write about Racing and the "tips" are often derived Thursday afternoon with little or no time to study form. If the journalist concerned is out of the office, someone else has to do it and who knows? Did the fashion editor do the tips this week.

One more logical approach these days is to get a consensus with Racing systems or rating programs and many people do this quite successfully.

Two of Winform’s most successful systems are the Winform Winner Specials and Success Express. I wont bore you with the details of how these selections are derived ( we let the computer do that) but suffice to say that each method finds winners in its own right.

The interesting thing is this. When both methods select the same horse, the strike rate is over 50% winners. That’s better than one winner from every two bets. Nobody gets winners as consistently as that. Now that information is available at around $15 per week ($800 per year) and provides around two or three good bets each week.

There are some successful punting syndicates that subscribe to several professional services and split the cost between them. By doing this they get the best of each service and can do quite well, particularly by taking mutliple selections for doubles trebles, quadrellas and trifectas etc. Between them, these syndicates probably pay upwards of $20,000 per year between them and do very well out of it.

A similar approach is now available through The Rating Bureau. Individuals can purchase the new Winline GTS computer program for less than $1,000. The program contains a data base and four rating programs, Trakline, Trakform, Formline and Winform. It also comes with a data base with over 10,000 previous races. The cost of future form ( this is downloaded to your computer with a modem) is about $1200 per quarter and the form for races is available up to two days before the race. Overall the cost of about $5,000 per year and gives access to the selections from four professional rating programs. More information than this, you don’t need. The selections that are derived from agreement between these four programs do very well indeed.

In addition to providing this data there is a valuable analysis tool to enable the user to sift through previous data to set up some "rules" which can improve the profitability of your selections. You can also combine the four rating programs in various combinations to come up with your own unique rating. For example, you might allocate 30% to Winform, 20% to Trakline and so on or simply allocate 25% to each. It’s up to you. If you are not sure what works best simply run an analysis of the last 10,000 races.

On raceday, it is then a simple matter of pressing the button and all selections for the day are instantly available. It is the most impressive computer racing program I have ever seen and I get the same impression from the few people who already have it.

The Rating Bureau have been supplying Racing information since the 1960’s and are at the forefront of the latest developments in Racing and computer technology. They also maintain an excellent website at trb.com.au where you can also load down form at a very reasonable price.

Garry Robinson can be contacted on: (02) 4950 1747