My main bet for the 15:00 Newbury last Saturday in the Ladbrokes Trophy Chase – Whisper – came second by a neck, beaten by the Arnold Schwarzenegger-ridden Total Recall.

Whisper’s Betfair SP odds were 13.29. It was a good shout and a whisker away.

I chose Whisper based on the jockey booking more than anything. It is a reminder that there is more than one way in which to pick your horse racing selections. There’s the live market, for example.

I have also shared my 16/1 System which uses the live betting market and the Racing Post Betting Forecast as comparators.

I have also shared with you my each-way strategy. No form research required whatsoever, just a clever way of putting the probabilities in your favour. This strategy has been vindicated this week with winners at odds of 13, 13 again, 3.38, and 7.4, since 5th December. Those selections are shared at www.whatreallywinsmoney.co.uk. If you want to make selections yourself, check out previous eletters, because I shared the strategy very recently with you.

Any other ways to make selections in horse racing? Well, there are horse racing systems. I like to use horse racing systems from a practical perspective. Quite simply, I don’t have the time to do in-depth form analysis of horse races of interest. I want quick and practical (oh, and profitable) strategies.

There are a few key elements if you want to create your own horse racing systems.

Record results to Betfair SP (you can find these results at www.timeform.com). There are a couple of reasons for this:

Any back strategy might turn into a neat lay strategy! Betfair SP odds tend to outperform Industry SP, and that may be crucial to the profit.

Ideally your strategy should be back-testable. Again, www.timeform.com and www.racingpost.com have an archive of results.

Use freely available race cards at www.racingpost.com, www.racinguk.com or www.attheraces.com, amongst others.

Record results in as comprehensive a manner as possible. For example, by the aforementioned Betfair SP. Also include Place odds in case there is a high percentage of placed horses. (There is a place market at Betfair, as distinct from the win market.) You could even record Betfair SP and then record the lowest odds in running (Hi/Lo at www.timeform.com). This opens up a possible ‘dobbing’ strategy.

Staking software is an option, but will enhance your chances of successfully creating a long-lasting horse racing strategy. It will also crunch the numbers, allow you to filter by odds, and by staking plans, for both backing and laying.

As the year comes to an end, I’ll be updating results for my strategies and will share one with you next week which has had a superb year, but did not have a great year in 2016. It still might interest you once I reveal the profit figure for 2017!

I will give you some more ideas in next week’s eletter, specifically relating to horse racing backing and laying strategies that require absolutely no form analysis whatsoever!

And before I go, horse racing strategies are all about ideas. Websites such as this one at https://www.glennobrien.net/horse-racing-systems.html can help generate those ideas. If any idea grabs your attention, remember to record results as comprehensively as you can.