Me:
1st- I check to see furlongs
I hate quarters and I hate horses where horses never won
2nd- where they place in previous races and by lengths-then I read other horses
3rd- workouts breezed or handled and if it places well
4th- then I look at ratings
5th odds
6th forum summary
7th- then I watch the horses- I can't tell if a horses gonna do well by looking at it, but I feel I'm very accurate when I see a horse that won't do well-and I've been correct on heavy favorites
8th- how much do i want to spend?
1. Check current form. Toss out horses that did not finish well under similar conditions in the last race or on a comeback horses whose trainers and jocks are low percentage on comebacks.
2. Check class. Toss out horses that have not succeeded at the current class or are moving up too far from recent success.
3. Check speed. Toss out horses that have never come within ~10 of the Beyer par for the race.
4. Handicap the pace of the race (using all horses) to decide how I believe it will unfold with the horses I have remaining.
Obviously this is way simplified, there are all sorts of tweaks, rules, trainer/jock/track exceptions, etc. But this is my overarching method or starting point. BOL out there Darrell.