How about we choose one track at one distance, to produce communal ratings for? That way no-one's giving up much of their commercially proprietary - or individually hard-won, hand-scraped - data. No "keys to the kingdom" are being handed out. If, by some fluky chance, we were to produce something functional, it would likely only work well for this specific application. (And if it did work, it might be a good advertisement for these commercial products; along with providing a workthrough - to potential clients - on how best to utilise them).

...it'd also be nice if the forum were invested/focussed on the same race. It'd be like a Melbourne Cup every week!

What about Toowoomba? Racing is on synthetic every Saturday night. R&S claims that there are usually 2 1200's per meeting (but doesn't have data for races beyond 1300m). I'm not sure anywhere else would have more frequent, year-round racing.

I'm happy to give this a crack in whatever manner people are willing to do it and actively contribute. I guess the problem I'm seeing already, and its natural, is that so many people have different ways of doing things.

Some of the discussion in this thread has already been more centered on what i'd call 'system' style selections rather than creating ratings. What type of discussion is it exactly that those who wanted to 'attack the back' (discuss backing) expected to have in these kind of threads?

Did people want to discuss systems and unique filters for finding backing opportunities, do people want to create ratings together using statistical data, do people want to discuss how to use specific ratings (i.e. sky ratings) in a profitable manner?

I basically just created this thread to generate some discussion as there was some complaining happening about the lack of any. Seems I opened a can of worms a bit and some people have already given various angles on which all of the above can be approached.

I just think it would be kind of cool if we managed to get a propun community set of ratings together in a uniform manner. Maybe instead of concentrating on a single venue and distance we can simply concentrate on NSW Metro (since they have the required backing limits as well if this does eventually become a backable resource).

A lot of the replies here are saying you need data, you need data and they are correct. But who are there any people willing to contribute using their data and/or ideas to put together a ratings technique for NSW metro as a group? If not thats fine I can be on my merry way, but it could be a fun and educational exercise even if it amounts to nothing profitable. Not to mention could stimulate ideas and discussion for people to take away in their own betting.

This is an interesting concept and could have some legs providing the ratings aren't based on the usual suspects (barrier, dist stats, track stats, etc, etc) and is based on other factors not widely used like speed ratings and such.

I'd be happy to consider offering some of my speed based ratings for the experiment if the overall idea looks like a goer.

Member Restricted forum section would be I think a good idea.

__________________
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/

Cheers.

Yes members only would be good.

Here is my 2c worth.
Punters all regard win and place % highly.
I use the opposite in conjunction with the two I mentioned above .

Hope it's not too cryptic?