Barney,

What's it like to know someone up there likes you? The way it won I think it must be a bit stronger than like. Pity about the price but that's not your fault unless the whole board lumped on, on your say so.

Well done :-))

Be Lucky

boozer,

the selection give above is one of VDW's methods

he describes it as the "ultimate balance between class and form" he clearly says IF THESE LOSE then someone up there doesnt like you.

he doesnt say good thing - good proposition etc.

I take that literally. there havn,t been many of these this year and believe me i've been looking.

statajack,

where does your knowledge of VDW come from if You havn't looked at PK or Roushayd?

when i first looked at PK i spent about a month going through the form etc recording everything creating mountains of analysis ( as i am certain everyone else has )now i can look at vdws examples and can see most by inspection of the horse itself in about 10 mins.

VDW said ask what is form and you will met with a strange silence.When you get VDW's interpretation of form into your head and its cyclical nature then they get a lot lot easier to spot.

Thats why he could do it as he writes, with a quick look its obvious if they are out of form or not and that certainly narrows the field of vision

mtoto,

i would be far more pleased if one person said they had applied the other method i desribed to todays handicaps.I know the ratings were a bit tight but they still worked.

Statajack


I don't have the Raceform handicap ratings for the 3 BL races, I'm afraid (unless you mean the sfs recorded in the Form Book).

You may be right about the ratings, though I think the text is inconclusive.

Statajack,

My humble apologies, the last thing I want to do is give offence.

Is the figure you are trying to get, the one that comes after the OR in the RFU results? If it is I am sorry to say they didn't supply it back then. In the old days the only place you could find it was in the races to come section.

Barney,

I didn't know vdw had a method the used penaltys, I would appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.

Be Lucky

does anyone give any purchase to the PEACH-NOTE?

after all he spoke to VDW!

I think the reason vdw gave more examples of NH races,is that he liked to give recent examples,and I believe that he posted more frequently during the NH season.
vdw also stated in a reply to a contributor,that there were more opportunities during the flat season.
As far as I am aware he also did not give any examples involving 5 or 6 furlong races,but no reason was given.However as he used a selling race to highlight, how the method could work on such a race,then I am sure that it also works on sprint races.
The time taken to analyse a race could be up to 30 minutes,however it only takes a few minutes to eliminate a race.The post race analysis can be time consuming.
Barney,to explain the other issue,maybe a chat sometime.

Statajack

The 6 from 12 are there in the Zamandra and Stray shot example
Jan 26 1985
Titled The Class/Form Horse The one Most Likely To Win
In the book
Ultimate Wheil of Fortune
Yes you are right
They were only examples in that case

Got mixed up but I have reproduced a later paragraph contained in the April 13 1985 Missing Link Article a couple of pages further on in the same book Paragraph 7

All the races featured last time I wrote were Analysed by me exactly as those of March 28 1981 (The Golden years-Van der Wheil spells it all out) and although there will doubtless be many that find it difficult to accept that 6 winners from 10 can be achieved as demonstrated for Boxing day, I can assure them that is nothing unusual

Barney

As a matter of interest could you have got the winner of the 3-10 Brighton Triplemoon Today
No doubt it will turn the hairs grey of the VDW purists here
I wont call it Roushyd but more like a straight forward drop in class
Mtoto would see it I think but he doesn’t bother with low class races by the looks of it

i know i have seen it and understood it, finding it is another thing!

i am sure that looking for it though will help a lot.

give me a day or two.


anyone bothered?

TGY peach note one

4/6 HEADLINES is on in 2 minutes

i can honestly say i didnt check that race checked the 340 though.

boozer

had a quick look i know what you mean but i could nt have backed it it was a bit to subtle for me.

pipedreamer

look forward to it.

another losing bet!

Barney,
I have the form for PK and Roushayd, as well as all the vdw books with the exception of Silver Lining. I don't have the 78/79 Raceform form book, hence the question about what the ratings for BL might show.
I understand what you are saying about form cycles and how vdw perceived form etc and yes, I agree it takes about 10 minutes to look at the majority of his examples and see where he's coming from. Yes, I also know that the numerical picture is subject to other considerations. However I have also given a considerable amount of thought to the questions I have been asking and the statements I have been making in my recent posts, sorry if my line of reasoning is unclear.

Mtoto,
No offence was taken, I was just taking the mickey! Thanks for answering my question.
regards,

no my friend its me who should be sorry, i read your posts, i should have read and understood.

As with so many things, particularly VDW and others writing's they should be read and re-read to understand their true worth.

but thats only apparent if you already know.


sorry again PEACH-NOTE 2

Statajack - VDW did say at some point that the worth of ratings could only be gauged by the means used to compile them and in that respect he suggested form should be the source.

Fulham - You may be interested to know that considering all races run on the flat excluding maidens and disregarding all other factors, the top rated on ability wins just over 10% of them. As just one example take Ascot this year. From 68 races just 8 were won by the top rated on ability overall at 4/5 , 5/2 , 4/1 , 16/1 , 9/4 , 12/1 , 7/2 and Evs.

Your point about the Christmas Hurdle and Night Nurse/Dramatist is a good one, but were they just class horses but not really in form ? Surely what applies in one race should apply throughout ? Look again at Roushayds races and consider the outcomes. Why did VDW go to such detail ? Why did he say to bear in mind that all horses recieve the same attention in practice ?

Mtoto - I'm not sure I understand your question. The point about sfs was that most of the Irish horses didn't have a sf because they had only raced in Ireland. This for me isn't a negative and it goes someway to show that VDW wasn't placing too much faith in them. He did of course make good use of sfs but in the main class and form were his kingpins.

As a newcomer to this string I have only read 25% of the postings to date, so forgive me if the following has been aired previously. There is an alternative to backing 2 horses in a race particularly if one is strongly fancied and another horse is seen as a potential danger although out of form, returning from a long layoff or whatever.
To take a recent example, there are 2 four to one shots in a race, backing both of them is the equivalent to taking 6/4; why not place the majority of the stake on the one that is seen as a strong bet and have a small CSF the possible danger to beat it?
In the above example (Using the rough formula of 4/1 x 4+1 =20/1 i.e.add a point to the price of the 2nd and multiply by the price of the winner ) the outlay to return £100 would be £25 rather than the £40 that would be necessary to back both horses, turning your bet from a 6/4 winner to a 3/1 winner. Obviously if the danger wins and your stong selecion fails to show, you have done your money, but this needs to be balanced against the amount you have saved by not 'Dutching' on other races.

Guest

Thanks for the info. re top rated on ability. I wonder whether perhaps you have comparable info. re the percentage of races won by "form" horses? (I appreciate that we may assess "form" by at least in part different criteria, as we sometimes arrive at different conclusions, but it would nevertheless be of considerable interest to me if you have an approx. figure you feel able to disclose.)

As to the horses Beacon Light beat in the Christmas Hurdle, in my view Night Nurse was out of form, but Dramatist was in, the performance in the Bula being a good one, and therefore BL's victory, in a fast run race, was a worthy won, albeit that there were only two opponents.

Your comment re the Roushayd races is, I assure you, not lost on me, but I confess still to being dissatisfied when I apply the same approach to Stray Shot's.

Regards

I was interested to read the following recently posted quote, "although there will doubtless be many that find it difficult to accept that 6 winners from 10 can be achieved as demonstrated for Boxing day, I can assure them that is nothing unusual". This is of course 60% not the 80% often considered to indicate understanding and implimentation of VDW methodology. Further to which the phrasing "that is nothing unusual" suggests that even 60% should not be expected everyday.

Johnd

Good point
I sometimes use perms/differential staking

an example would be

10p win single strong selection
2 points win danger to beat selection csf
1 exacta 3rd to beat 1
0.5 - 1 points 4th/5th exacta to beat 1

the stakes may of course vary and so would the number of bets

The ideal for csf/excata betting is that the shortest price horse comes second not first to maximise returns