i would agree with your last post in fact i will go so far as to say that at the lower end of the class scale is where you will find the better opportunities and value.
i mean when you are at group level the world and its dog knows just about all there is to know about each horse and a good value bet is harder to find.
looking lower down you can always find an average horse competing against poorer opposition.
a vdw based winner in a claimer is just as good as one in a 50k h/c.

Boozer,
I`ve just done some research for topweights
running over 5F at Epsom and Pontefract and
the results might surprise you.

Epsom 5F 9 winners from 63 14% strike rate.

12% profit.



Pontefract 16 winners from 96 17% strike rate.

36%profit.



I think the samples are to small to draw any
real conclusions from though.



Maggsy

more relevent would be top weights on tight turning tracks.now there you have something.

do you post on another board?

good point that max

i suppose because its a tight track the times are slower and they have longer to lump all that weight about.

probably true on g/s as well

Sorry to see your leaving. Good luck in whatever
you do.

Mtoto.

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate that a person of your stature on this board takes the time and interest to answer some of my points, and hope you will read the following in the vein that it is intended.
You say that no trainer would turn down a £10,000
prize in the interests of a future event, and as I dont think for one moment that your naive we must be talking about totally different aspects.
Off the top of my head I can recall numerous examples of horses being given an easy race before going on to take a much juicier prize e.g.
Kings Best in a guineas trial before taking the
classic. Air Express in a guineas trial before winning the St James Palace and most noticeably
a Gosden horse (Russian Revival if memory serves)
running down the field in a small conditions race
before scooping a massive prize ( ridden from the front as I recall, as opposed to being held up in the small conditions race) in a big Ascot handicap.
VDW made too many references to watching how a trainer places his horses for it not to be a consideration, you obviously see this differently
to me and I am more than a little 'gobsmacked'.
If you are not too offended by this posting, perhaps you would elaborate?
If you have covered this point in previous postings, then I apologise, as I have only recently discovered this forum and so far have managed only a quick scaon of the first half.

Regards

Johnd

Hi Statajack

Its a shame you won't be posting: you'll certainly be missed.

Good luck.

Sorry memory doesnt serve made a complete balls of Russian Revival. Must be the Alzheimers, I am after all the oldest junior nember on the board.

Max

You’ve read Stewart Simpsons book then ?
Possibly he could be right

Maggsy

I assume you are using RSB


Stats
Damned lies and all that

I said topweights (my Mistake)
But you are looking at one horse against a field of about (whatever) the topweight In a particular race maybe be out of form/badly handicapped/ etc
you have a separate race i.e another little handicap of in form horses or whatever the description

Can you run on Rsb
Say the highest weight in the first 6 in the betting in a hcp
that is a separate race if you get my drift and you are confident that the winner will come from there
And that is the most acccurate filter I have seen in 35 years (the first 6 in the betting forecast)
So there I agree totally with VDW
But it ‘s not exclusive to him.

It’s a tricky problem

Barney.

Who broke the course record, Swiss Maid or Cistus? What I'm trying to do is come to the solution using Guest's method and I can't see why Cistus is not the horse. She seems to have all the required attributes. You have a look, 3rd on consistence, top on ability. In form lacking nothing in class. Whereas Swiss Maid has never won a race of this class.

Johnd,

I think we may be talking at cross purposes. I am not talking about a horse that is having a prep race for a big prize. I'm talking about a horse that is ready to win, has shown it can win a race of the class of the expected race. I.E. Scott's View (although I think his form was an illusion) The impression I got was you, and Barney thought he wasn't sent out to win. I just don't think trainer throw away £19.000 by using that class of race as a prep race. I like horses that are running in a handicap for the first time, as long as they are very near the top of the OR's. Stoute does it a lot, so you have to take his runners with a pinch of salt. I'm not sure, but I don't think you could make a profit backing them. I do agree with Guest that horses can be hidden by a rise in class, but when they come back to the right class bingo Lunar Leo. I don't think the same happened with Tillerman at Ascot, he was out to win. The Jockey made the wrong decision and went the wrong side.

Boozer,

I though vdw said take the 2 highest penalty races from the main meeting and the highest one from the support meetings. Doesn't sound to me that he was very interested in low class races. Yes, he did say the method worked in most races. but I think that was just to prove a point.

Max,

Don't you think a good consistent horse stands out in these low class races? The value is gone because they are over backed. I agree the top races are over analysed, but the good thing is the hype often gets in the way making plenty of false favourites, i.e Hawk Wing in the Derby.

Be Lucky

[This message was edited by Mtoto on September 02, 2002 at 01:17 AM.]

JohnD - I believe VDWs "Really out to win" scenario is all about spotting a trainers intentions via his placement of the horse which is then backed up by class and form. There is a common thread that runs through Prominent King and Rivage Bleu and also the other 5 horses he gave in 95/96 as best/next best bets. I'm not going to point it for obvious reasons, but he did say he found Travado/Rivage Bleu/Arthurs Minstrel/Ever Smile/Valiant Warrior and Killeshin quite differently to anything he had shown before. All of them had some major upheavel in their training programs before being placed in a race they were really out to win. Of course a lot of it could just be down to how the form book really works out with the wins taking even the trainers by surprise sometimes, but it is they who are governing how the horse is placed and when it ties up with good relative class/form then a win is very much on the cards.

I don't agree with your conclusion on what VDW said about conditions races. What he was actually saying was these races are often uncompetetive leaving them at the mercy of the class/form horses. He did ask why the lesser class horses were entered anyway. Well with lightly raced horses, it can be because after winning their maiden they need to get a handicap mark. A certain much respected trainer often uses this ploy with his 3yos so as not to over expose them before going for a good handicap. They may win their maiden doing handsprings, but they need a rating to race in handicaps. Why not run it out of it's depth and hopefully calm the handicapper down a bit regarding it's potential or worse still run it in a low class conditions race and get it beaten at short odds into 3rd or worse. It's all much the same as the 3 runs for a mark scenario which prevails so often, the most blatant case in recent years being Halling who got beat in all 3 maidens before hacking up in a handicap at Pontefract, narrowly at Doncaster and then landing the Cambridgeshire easily. His 4yo campaign went even better starting with the Eclipse and so on. Still it is an interesting area.

Statajack - Sorry to hear of your impending absence. I'm sure we will hear from you at some point in the future. Best of luck.

Mtoto - As 3yos the ability rating needs treating with caution but still respected. As you know, 3yos especially fillys, can improve at quite a rate later in the year. Speed is used as a further guide, but again not the be all and end all. Look at the horses who competed in their respective races and see what you notice bearing in mind the said points.

MTOTO

I have gone more in depth to discover the point that you raise. cistus is out of form relative to her past performances.IN 2827 you would have thought she would have had a good chance but no.The trainer then has to send her a LOng way to look for a win.Not many would be able to say out of form after a g3 win.

Use the same cross check on cistus as the one on son of love and you will find that cistus is the inverse of son of love.

VDW was the founding father and he knew what to look for with regard to the form cycle.

same as all the others!

[This message was edited by Barney on September 02, 2002 at 06:19 AM.]

All the very best.

As Fulham has stated, you will be missed and the thread will not be the same.

Cheers,

Well done with Coalition.

Mr Prescott has served me well down the years notably with Wizard King and Pasternak.

Cheers,

Have a good look at compton commander today if you think it doesnt matter where trainers place their horses.

I know its only a class 81 but a class 81 mile is going to be run a lot quicker than a class 69 mile and a half.

There is horse with same leval of ability but far more consistent in its placement.Yakimov, how thats 11/2 i dont know.

a similar cross check to the above however puts short respite in with a decent shout and a real danger

Also worth noting is that b.hills doesn't want the glen claimed for some reason.

In claimer's trainers can handicap their own horses.

Statajack,
Many thanks for your extremely helpful posts.They have indeed taken me further in my understanding of the methodology in the true spirit of VDW.

Good Luck for the future.

i did more than that,spent most of one summer with him keeping quiet and listening.

barney.
the tight track scenario could possibly explain the big advantage pipe runners seem to have.take a general look at his s/r at big open galloping tracks in comparison to the smaller venues.
it gives you one hell of an advantage doing it from the front.

Mtoto

As regards the Cistus/Swiss Maid race, I think that this is like a number of examples given or endorsed by VDW - Pegwell Bay comes to mind - where the selection was not the class/form horse but there were good grounds for taking on the c/f with the 2nd or 3rd c/f.

That Cistus was the top-rated on ability is, I think, indisputable. Was she in form? Here, I would have to disagree with Barney. Prior to the race Barney highlights, Cistus had won a class 96 (Group 3) and then a class 143 (Group 2).She was then pushed up massively in class to a 492 (Group 1), where she came 9th. Finally, lto before the race Mr Hall considered, she dropped back to Group 2, winning a class 167. Given that the race under consideration was a class 134, I cannot see that Cistus can be regarded as other than a form horse for it, and thus the class/form horse.

However, Swiss Maid's performances are better than the bare class figures suggest. Her three prior runs in class 21 (3rd), 69 (won) and lto 94 (won), don't at face value compare favourably with Cistus's. But when one looks at the horses she ran against, as Guest suggests, the picture changes. For example, in the class 94 her three main rivals were three of the horses Cistus beat in her first Group 2 win. Again, in her class 69 win the runner up was Spring in Deepsea, 5th to Cistus in that filly's second Group 2 win.

I think the key to the selection of Swiss Maid (who, even if she wasn't, as I believe, the c/f, was certainly a form horse) lies in what might be called the profiles of the two horses over the season, and the weight carried in the race in question. And in the context of the former, I do agree with Barney that Cistus's performance in her York Group 1 race was disappointing.

Would somebody be kind enough to post up the whole section about world cruises? If it's too tiresome I would be equally happy with a fax: +81762238516. Thanks.

Barney, YAKIMOV is also a 4ntry horse.