VDW said to ignore novice hudles and sellers.

310a

the answer is a book with logiciam and shamawan

Fair enough. Personally I'm not going to blindly follow everything VDW said. If it makes sense it can be useful, if not forget it. Good luck with your Dutch bet.

Since the 3.10 at Ascot is attracting so many different views, I thought I would give my own view via VDWs methods.

The class/form horse is Logician with Just Jasmine 2nd on class/form and Redemption 3rd class/form. All 3 horses have form on the track and at a higher level of race class, though again interesting that they fall in the same order from that stance.

Whilst Logician is the most probable winner, there are factors that sound the alarm bells and overall the race presents a conflict. It's a no bet race for me.

The other clear (5pts+) class/form horses in non novice races on the card are 2.40 Baracouda and 3.45 Tikram.

Baracouda faces only one serious rival who has class and form but at the minimum trip. Baracouda looks a good thing, but I would want 8/11 or better to bet.

Tikram has a lot of plus points also, but there are a couple of others with similiar claims and I wouldn't bet in this race.

So all in all a no bet day for me, unless the bookies get generous like last year and push Baracouda to 8/11 or better.

Mtoto - Would you say Castle Warden improved on it's previous few runs when running 3rd on it's last outing before Boxing Day?

I would be gratefull if you felt able to comment,

with the other scenarios I expressed re canny danny and west tip etc.
Is your conclusion drawn from the weight susceptibility aspects?

Hello Fulham,

I considered Logician not to be a form horse for this race but I see that Guest has him as a form horse so I'll look at the race again.

All the best
hedgehog

Barney - Lady Cricket had factors against that also prevailed against Canny Danny. I wouldn't quite compare Just Jasmine with West Tip. You may like to look at another the race for other minus points attributed to LCs chance.

Regards Taming, as everyone will know I backed Wouldn't You Agree against this last Sunday. WYA was the class/form horse that day but didn't deliver. Today Taming was taking on Master George who was dropped in class a long way and had run 2nd to Galileo prior to that horse winning at the Festival. Giving 10lbs was always going to be a tall order to such a horse under todays conditions and I couldn't have encouraged anyone to back Taming today.

Thanks AGAIN

You really are one of the most generous persons I have never met.

god bless you and VDW.

[This message was edited by Barney on November 22, 2002 at 11:21 PM.]

As an aside you may be interested to know that Castle Prince is out again today.

This time in a five runner field against Best Mate.

According to the handicapper he is 40lb "wrong"

the prize for last is £1375 pounds, he should win that easy.

Rating up again, LOL.

Barney

Your query of a day or two ago re the handicap marks of Canny Danny, etc.

No one seems to have the info., which is not surprising as to get it would involve quite a lot of fiddling around with Racing Calendars from the time.

I don't have the handicap ratings, but if you want them to understand VDW's comment about West Tip having half a stone in hand of Canny Danny at the framed weight, I can probably help anyway.

Excuse me interupting your conversation with Barney but I would also be interested in what you have to say regarding the `framed weight` if you don`t mind.

If it is something you do not want to broadcast on the thread then of course I understand and respect that.

*** good luck to all those playing today ***

I won`t be and haven`t in fact placed a bet since Tom Tun. Other priorties at present,

Cheers,

Hello Fulham,

hope you and yours are well and happy.

Reading back my last response I feel it came over a bit offhandedly. This was not the intention. Apologises if this is how it was received.

I didn't think Logician was in form for the 3.10 Ascot because of what it had achieved on British tracks and the level of race it was contesting in comparison to that.

I accept that it should be a form horse but I realise that my mistake was one based on attitude. There is a great difference between myself and Guest in degree of experience but more significantly Guest has a positive attitude to form were I take a negative one.

My most common mistake is to consider a horse out of form when it is in form. For example, yesterday I looked at 2 races both eventual winners I considered out of form but taking a positive attitude would have made them in form.

Attitude is a difficult thing to alter so I see I have a long road ahead of me!

All the best
hedgehog

thanks for your kind offer,

You have hit the nail on the head, that is exactly why I want them.

I have my suspicions of course but its important, to me, to have them confirmed.

If you cant put the reasons here I will contact you later, if that is OK?

You appear to be making a mistake that I made many, many times.

The c/f is the c/f no matter what.If you decide to overlook it for other reasons this does not alter the fact that it is the c/f and most likely to win.

It may then become the c/f with negatives in the overall context of the race but it cant change to class/out of form.

Barney

No worries. I'll post again after racing - or ealier if Ascot is cancelled (it is tipping down where I live - about twenty miles from the track).

The explanation has nothing to do with VDW's methods, but lies in the complexity of the handicapping system.


Hedgehog

Bear in mind that VWD had his own, idiosyncratic way of evaluating which horses were in form and which were not. The class/form horse, from a VDW perspective, is the highest ability rated horse which is in form as assessed in that idiosyncratic way.

Barney

Ascot is off.

The weights actually carried in the race in question were:

Canny Danny - 11.11
Lean Ar Aghaidh - 10.10
West Tip - 10.01
Bold Yeoman - 10.01
Little Polveir - 10.01,

and thus two of VDW's comments are right:

1) Canny Danny did give over a stone to the horse (Lean Ar Aghaidh) next in the handicap - 15lb to be precise;

2) Canny Danny did give "almost double" that the West Tip - 24lb (one might quibble with the word "almost").

The weights above were not those the runners were officially expected to carry, as the three bottom weights all carried 1lb overweight, due to the jockeys concerned not being able to make 10 stone.

So the official weights for the race were:

Canny Danny - 11.11
Lean Ar Aghaidh - 10.10
West Tip - 10.00
Bold Yeoman - 10.00
Little Polveir - 10.00.

These in turn differed from the "framed weights" (those originally set soon after entries for the race closed on 12 December) in three respects:

1) they included any penalties for wins after 12 December - in practice this only effected Canny Danny, who carried 4lb extra for his win on 15 December;

2) they were all 18lb higher (22lb in Canny Danny's case because of (1) above) than the original framed weights, because many of the original, more highly weighted runners withdrew before race day. (You'll find this fact above the names of the runners in the Form Book, and of course it was in the Sporting Life on the day of the race);

3) they reflected the race condition that the minimum weight to be carried was 10 stone. In practice, after stages (1) and (2) above, West Tip was scheduled to carry 9.12, Bold Yeoman 9.7, and Little Polveir 9.5 (you'll find this fact underneath the names of the runners on the Sporting Life card). However, because of the minimum weight condition, all had to carry 10 stone, ie between 2lb and 9lb more than their handicap ratings required.

By working backwards from the above known facts, one can, of course, derive the original framed handicap weights, which should be as follows:

Canny Danny - 10.3 (ie the 11.11 carried, less the 4lb penalty, less the 18lb general increase in the weights);
Lean Ar Aghaidh - 9.6 (ie the 10.10 carried, less the 18lb general increase);
West Tip - 8.8 (ie the 10.01 carried, less the 1lb overweight, less the 2lb increase to ensure the horse carried the scheduled minimum weight of 10 stone, less the 18lb general increase in the weights);
Bold Yeoman - 8.3 (as per West Tip, but in his case less the 7lb increase to ensure the horse carried the scheduled minimum weight of 10 stone);
Little Polveir - 8.1 (as West Tip, but less the 9lb increase to ensure the horse carried the scheduled minimum weight of 10 stone).

These weights should be those published in the Racing Calendar after the race closed on 12 December, and to check I've not missed anything I'll check that they are when I next go to the Newspaper Library.

Assuming that I have correctly calculated the framed weights (and I can't see any scope for error, for example with this race there is no weight-for-age adjustment to be made), VDW's third comment - that West Tip had "half-a-stone in hand" over Canny Danny at the "framed weight" seems wrong.

For, at the framed weight, Canny Danny was scheduled to give West Tip 23lb (10.3 less 8.8). On the day, Canny Danny actually gave West Tip 24lb (11.11 less 10.1). Thus West Tip was only 1lb better off on the day than on the framed weights, not "half a stone".

Not a great days racing in prospect with Ascot off. However, there is one class/form horse I will be backing at Lingfield in the 2.20 in the form of Material Witness. He looks a good thing in my view.

In the Listed race, the class horse Dupont has been winning group races and now steps up 2 furlongs but dropped a long way in class. He looks a probable winner though has obviously had some training problems. I won't be getting involved, though had the race been over a mile it would be a different story.

Have a good day all.

Hedgehog,

You said in a posting you didn't think Logician was the c/form horse, because Guest didn't agree you assume you are wrong, why? I also didn't have him the c/form horse, I made Just Jasmine the one. That's not to say I made her a bet, I had big doubts about her in a race of this class at Ascot.

The use of the VDW ability rating to my mind gave Logician a false position in the class ranking. As you pointed out he had done nothing in this country to warrant it. What a horse does in another country with a different prize money structure, must not be taken at face value.

I have found Guest and I often don't agree on the c/form horse, but when we do they very often win. Strangely enough when we don't Guest often finds a reason not to back, usually because of conflict. I wonder if my way eliminates a lot of this conflict, and why if you have the true c/form horse is there conflict. To me there is a big difference between conflict, and a logical reason why the horse can't perform to it's best.

Just Jasmine can win on right handed and on stiff up hill courses, but not at Ascot. Four or five runs on the course without a win, why? I'm not sure of the answer, the only thing I can think of is the sharp bend to close to the winning line. She is in contention coming to the bend, seems to lose her place and then run on. Last week I made Cyfor Malta the c/form horse but was happy he had retained his old form. A mistake, especially as he had recorded his fastest ever time at Aintree. These are doubts, not conflict.

As I have said before the basics of VDW are sound, I am not so sure about some of the idiosyncratic methods VDW used to evaluate form.

Don't doubt yourself Mr Hedgehog, just go into a little more detail. Keep your negative perspective on form. When you find one you are happy with go to town, and don't be afraid if the rest of the world can't see it.

Be Lucky

I see you have Material Witness as a 'Good Thing', I really do hope he wins for you, but, with all due deference, there are a couple of fairly obvious factors against him today.

Mtoto - VDW was quite clear that he did not expect every runner he saw as the class/form horse to win. His method was to quickly find the class/form horse and see if everything else supported it relative to the others.

To demonstrate the isolation of the VDW class/form horse, he eventually gave the 6 examples on Boxing Day 1984 at the minor meetings. The fact that the Life data was wrong for Bonny Gold (therefore resulting in this one becoming the class/form ahead of Turi) did not make one iota of difference to the end result because the other considerations showed him to be not a horse to bet. Just one of these considerations was consistency, a factor that others say is useless, but time and time again the better races are won by one of the 3 most consistent runners. This factor was also just one of the negatives against Castle Warden. The only two horses who had the real class/form in the book were Zamandra and Stray Shot.

You have indirectly mentioned speed again via Cyfor Malta, and speed is very useful, but I wonder how you think VDW selected horses before speed figures were introduced? True, he made use of them, but they were not an essential tool in the main and he was not identifying class/form horses via anything other than race class and form. You may not agree with this approach, but that is the one he demonstrated for use with his consistency method amongst others.

You say you are looking for the true class/form horse. VDW looked for the class/form horse with everything in it's favour. Surely your idea must show a true class/form horse in every race and if so do the vast majority win?

The main problem will always boil down to the appraisal of form. Class,speed,weight or whatever will always be useless without real form to back it up.

Your own approach obviously works for you, but being as it has omitted various factors involved in the ones VDW put forward for others to digest, how can it help those such as Hedgehog who want to get to grips with VDWs methods?

I don't blame you for not revealing your own hidden factors you use, but the ones I am referring to are not really hidden at all and they are there in VDWs examples. You just have to look at each race in the same manner or approach. As VDW said, figure out why Stray Shot and Zamandra were the only horses to bet and one will start to achieve consistent success.

Guest,
The two shortest priced forecast favs on a given day,has a phenomenal strike rate,when analysis is complete.
As regard Stray Shot and Zamandra,could somebody post up details,or point out where they can be found I have no records for these two examples,and would be keen to study them,
Thanks in anticipation.