Barney

re Lyric Dance, yours is a possible, but I think probably wrong, reading. The passage is as follows:

"... recent good things have included ... Lyric Dance only just beaten last year by One in a Million and also a good thing but not at the price."

I take this as meaning Lyric Dance was, like Pragmatic and Inside Quarter, a good thing (and by inference backed), but that One in a Million, while also a good thing, was not a bet at the price.

But I agree that VDW's use of language here is not without some ambiguity.

As regards Mr Hall, simply using the two guides in the Prominent King letter (consistency and betting forecast), and conventional form analysis, finds them. None of the more difficult elements are needed, so I couldn't agree with your "incredibly".

You say:

quote:

---

Iv'e come to the conclusion that the time has come for me to unravel things for myself,And not be swayed by somebody else's interpretation,The last fortnight has highlighted something,which i have come to regard as the second numerical picture,Iv'e been told by a good source,That it's not vdw i'm inclined to disagree,Time will tell,If i find out for myself it isn't vdw it's one hell of a crosscheck.

---

I think this a very wise move and one that will prove valuable whatever the outcome. As I've tried to say before it is only by reference to VDW's examples that we can decide if we've uncovered elements of his methods. Even if you find your thoughts don't correspond with VDW's examples, it doesn't mean that you haven't uncovered the basics of a profitable method yourself though

Cheers

Yes,I agree the bunny boiler has just popped in at navan,A picture is starting to emerge,That is just too uncanny,And this has been evident in a lot of examples iv'e looked back on,It can't be back fitted as it's based on performance,And of course logic,I didn't back T.B.B Although i wish i had lol,But it strengthens my opinion.

You really do confuse me sometimes,You said that Pizzaro was a good thing and basically was a steal at 4/6,Why what had it really proved,If you think this was a good thing ,Maybe you should take a look at Limestone Lad which had proved everything and was running against anything remotely in the same class,And at 1/2 THIS was a steal

Barney,

I'm not at all convinced your right about Uther Pendragon.What's all this stuff about it doesn't fit? This isn't meant to be some rigid rule system is it?.Why would VDW say that every race had different problems to solve?

To my mind there were question marks over Uther's main rivals.If the probability was there for a good run from Uther then he could very well have been a bet.

Barney - I didn't detail the 1.10 Chelt on Friday because it raised lot's of questions. The 5 class/form horses I highlighted produced 3 winners and 2 narrow 2nds, unlike Saturday which produced 1 winner from 13 class/forms. These were class/form horses as I see VDWs approach.

As I have said plenty of times, I do not claim to have all the answers. I do respect VDWs view though and one telling comment he made was that he estimated he only backed less than 20% of all horses he thought should win and that there was a very good reason for this. Could that reason be that far from all class/form horses win?

Surely, if most of them actually did win, then he would have helped himself continually?

One criticism I would aim at VDW, was that very often, the days or cards he evaluated just to show examples, were probably chosen because they showed things in a more favourable light than perhaps they are day in day out. Afterall, I can only recall one day he highlighted, that didn't produce a solid bet. That was Boxing Day 1986 where he still showed a very probable winner in Aherlow and the possible 16/1 King George winner. In practice, a day chosen at random will often produce nothing solid.

Food for thought maybe.

G Hall was possibly smarter than you give him credit for; did he not write of 'The spring and autumn double, with a constant string of winners in between'. He did not have the benefit of ability ratings, but would you consider, just for one moment, that he may not have needed them?

Johnd

I've made no comment on how smart Mr Hall was: merely that I am (almost) certain he had not solved the puzzle of working out VDW's approach.

First, the approach had not yet been fully set out (albeit in parts only ever by inference) and it would have been astonishing if anyone could anticipate it on the info. VDW had disclosed at that stage.

Second, as I posted in response to Barney, the four selections VDW confirmed as good things were in the small pools found by the two criteria given in the Prominent King letter, and found from those small pools by fairly straightforward conventional form analysis.

The absolute bottom line, methodologically speaking, is, as Crock has observed, whether an hypothesised approach "delivers" the 20 correctly specified c/fs VDW gave us, and the other horses explicitly named as form horses or not form horses (about another 30).

Guest tells us the approach or approaches he has discerned do, and as I think I work in the same way I know he is correct.

Mtoto has explicitly stated how he identifies the c/f and thus his approach can be checked out by anyone. Having looked at some examples Mtoto's way, it is quite clear that, irresepctive of how successful he is in selecting winners (and I've seen even more proof of his ability in that regard on other boards than he has posted here, eg Spectrometer on Friday in addition to Kadaran on Saturday), his way is clearly not VDW's as it doesn't deliver all 20 of the c/fs.

We don't know about yours because, not only have you (quite reasonably) not disclosed it, but you seem not even to be interested in putting it to the test yourself on VDW's examples.

But I did say methodologically speaking. There is the - to many - more important matter of which approach actually delivers the best results now. And for all I know, either or both of yours and Mtoto's may be superior to VDW's as (in my view) understood in its essentials by others. But as none of us is going to put up, in advance of racing, all our bets (and in my case I put up none of them), which approach is superior at finding winners over a sustained period will inevitably remain unknown.

I was going to Release a Barrage of Invictive against those on this Thread who never raise their thoughts and considerations beyond the immediate horizon !!!!

However may I very polit`ly suggest that you go across to the "Off Topic Thread" and offer your "Congratulations" to GUMMY on the birth of his Child !!

Barny "xepted !"

tc

ps

I reserve the "Invective" - for "Later"



[This message was edited by Tuppenycat on December 15, 2002 at 09:12 PM.]

[This message was edited by Tuppenycat on December 15, 2002 at 09:14 PM.]

111,

I've missed you.Where've you been?

JohnD,
I may be missing something with letrim lakes but
it has a consistancy rating of 14 and is not
rated as one of the 3 probables unless you don`t
count his first run at brighton.LTO won a maiden
didn`t seem to beat much class wise now going up]
in class to handicap company ,am i missing something.



Maggsy

VDW states " the method I gave gives 80-90% flat and jumps, year in year out"


he does not say the method i will give over the next 5 years.


BY logical assumption everything that was needed was in that very first example,Prominent king.

We all know how to find the c/f we need to know what made them bets, good things, fine gambles and outstanding bets, its this I am concentrating on.

Looking at LL in your way, you are actually missing quite a lot; as one example, if you check his last race more carefully, you will hopefully see the statement, 'he didn't beat much' to be a litle wide of the mark.

I feel very sure why you got LEITRIM LAKES,as I have with your others.
I have an e-mail if you would like to e-mail me.
I don't know enough about you to know whether you realise MTOTO knows. But he does.
Andrew seems to know.
Yours
Swish
p.s I don't think there is one tomorrow.

Barney

You are looking at the Prominent King example ahistorically.

I agree what when one understands VDW's approach sufficiently, one can see many of the elements within the PK example. But there is no way anyone could deduce the whole approach if all they had available to them was the PK example. To give you but one example, the important distinction between a horse being in form or not was not raised in that example in a way that could be discerned, which is why many assumed (and probably still assume) that "in-formness" and consistency were one and the same. I laboured under that particular misapprehension for ages.

You say "we all know how the find the c/f", but that is wrong, too. You get it wrong from time to time, as I have pointed out, and indeed the last time you explicitly agreed that you had. This is not meant to be a criticism: VDW wrote that "to isolate the "class/form" horse can often prove a tricky problem", and he wasn't kidding. If anyone, having studied only the PK example, could come up with, for example, Desert Hero as a bet in the 1983 Imperial Cup, AND EXPLAIN ITS LOGIC IN VDW TERMS, he or she would indeed be a genius.

I do agree, however, that working out how to identify form horses, (and thus the c/f), is no more than a means towards an end. We also need to identify the circumstances in which the c/f or some other form horse is a worthwhile bet, and although study of VDW's examples is relevant here, at the end of the day much of that is down to the quality of individual judgement: how one puts all the elements together, weighs the inevitable risks, assesses whether there is value in the price available, and ultimately decides whether to put worthwhile money down or not.

quickly looking at it (again)

Using two VDW's two methods of rating - the first four home all have the neccessary requirements, after this it gets a bit confusing.

I can only say that the determining factor, In vdw's eyes, must have been magnitude.

They came home in that order biggest differential, then second, then third.

I know you can make your mind up for yourself,But recently Swish made the same approach to max on another thread,Who didn't take up the e.mail correspondence,Swish got snotty,And max basically told him to go forth and multiply,he'll only try and pick your brains chap.

In the 1.25 at newcastle Man Murphy looks to have everything in his favour,Or does he,Today he's giving a lot of weight all round,And is also carrying quite a lot more than he has before,Plus the fact he's 18lb worse of with sea drifting who fell last time they met,But has recently run into form,I can't personally see past these two,But there is conflict and i'll only be watching

its also worth considering that see drifting was expected,by the market at least, to beat man murphy, at leval weights at chetenham.

in fact, he had, eventually to be pulled up.

Tees components back over 2 mile,Theyv'e got something big lined up for this one,At first glance looks good today.