midnight
04-12-2005, 08:20 PM
I saw a copy of this on Ebay for $10 and bought it, gathering from the text of the ad that it was the original. Of course I should have done more research. What I got was a photocopy, and I now see that the seller offers it and many similar things on Ebay on a regular basis --- in other words, he is probably selling copyrighted material without the permission of the proper people. The seller's name is "gufcost". Eventually, such people will get caught and possibly prosecuted. Beware when dealing with this person.
The system itself isn't too bad, although it's basically a chalk-picker. Some of the rules don't make sense. One rule says to consider only dirt sprints from 5.5f to 7f OR turf routes from 8.0f to 9.0f. Why it would work on those and not on dirt routes or turf sprints is a mystery. Most of the rules involve common sense basics designed to pick horses with early foot who pass some simple qualifications for recency, trainer ability, form, etc. Then points are added up based on the same things. Then the system recommended some fancy betting strategies based on the point gap between the top horse and any other horses who qualified by the system.
I didn't give it an extensive workout, but I did put it through some race cards at various tracks. The program found a play in about 43% of all races (144 out of 320). The top rated horse won about 24% of these races (35 out of 144) and showed an ROI of 0.85 (mean mutuel of $7.00). The larger the difference between the top rated horse and any others, the more often it won, and of course the less it paid. With a 30+ point gap, the win percentage was 38% (12 out of 32) and the ROI was 0.88 (mean mutuel of $4.70). Of course 32 race cards don't make a system, but it was obvious that it pointed towards short-prices with running styles of E and EP, plus a few P's. I've found that any method that primarily picks horses at 7/2 odds or lower is probably not going to be profitable. Other people might have a different opinion.
One complaint that I had was that it took a while to perform the calculations needed. To save time, I ended up spending 30 minutes writing a simple QBASIC program to do the arithmetic, but it still took a while to get a race done via manual input. I understand that System 17 also comes on CD and works automatically from BRIS/TSN files, so somebody who wanted to use it would probably want to get the software. From what I've read, the CD also contains Tom Console's FG method, which has received mixed reviews here.
Overall, I didn't find anything novel or new about System 17---it's pretty basic, and the results I got certainly wouldn't justify spending what the sellers want for it ($95 for the paper method). A larger sample might produce better results, but since it picks chalky horses, I'd tend to doubt it.
The system itself isn't too bad, although it's basically a chalk-picker. Some of the rules don't make sense. One rule says to consider only dirt sprints from 5.5f to 7f OR turf routes from 8.0f to 9.0f. Why it would work on those and not on dirt routes or turf sprints is a mystery. Most of the rules involve common sense basics designed to pick horses with early foot who pass some simple qualifications for recency, trainer ability, form, etc. Then points are added up based on the same things. Then the system recommended some fancy betting strategies based on the point gap between the top horse and any other horses who qualified by the system.
I didn't give it an extensive workout, but I did put it through some race cards at various tracks. The program found a play in about 43% of all races (144 out of 320). The top rated horse won about 24% of these races (35 out of 144) and showed an ROI of 0.85 (mean mutuel of $7.00). The larger the difference between the top rated horse and any others, the more often it won, and of course the less it paid. With a 30+ point gap, the win percentage was 38% (12 out of 32) and the ROI was 0.88 (mean mutuel of $4.70). Of course 32 race cards don't make a system, but it was obvious that it pointed towards short-prices with running styles of E and EP, plus a few P's. I've found that any method that primarily picks horses at 7/2 odds or lower is probably not going to be profitable. Other people might have a different opinion.
One complaint that I had was that it took a while to perform the calculations needed. To save time, I ended up spending 30 minutes writing a simple QBASIC program to do the arithmetic, but it still took a while to get a race done via manual input. I understand that System 17 also comes on CD and works automatically from BRIS/TSN files, so somebody who wanted to use it would probably want to get the software. From what I've read, the CD also contains Tom Console's FG method, which has received mixed reviews here.
Overall, I didn't find anything novel or new about System 17---it's pretty basic, and the results I got certainly wouldn't justify spending what the sellers want for it ($95 for the paper method). A larger sample might produce better results, but since it picks chalky horses, I'd tend to doubt it.