Firstly thank you all for kind words.

Titus and Jimmy,
It makes me feel good that you know I work hard and do not pretend to be anything I aren't. Thanks.

JohnD
Take your time, no problem.
There are some keys that put you straight in. Ther are others that don't open the lock. Whether there is a full set to be found, I don't know, but i wouldn't mind swapping a few.
Allthe best
Swish

Phew That was a nice wake up call,Looking at them posts,The reason iv'e decided to stop betting is for a few years now iv'e been using systems,Inevitably doing this your going to hit a losing run,The fact iv'e made money is good from my point of view,The thing is i don't want to carry on doing this,Without doing more research into what i seem to have stumbled across,It doesn't really matter because i'm not purely vdw as iv'e said before,So other oppurtunities will be there.And of course Limestone Lad was far and away the better bet.

Swish
I understood what Guest meant,I just acknowledged it differently.

johnd
I am normally a very good judge of character,Iv'e upset a few people along the way but i say it as it is,I won't stray away from this thread,Because certain people just presume your telling porkies or they just assinate your character,That's up to them,I just ignore them,Or even scroll past there posts,On the horse front i'm doing fine.

Further to your last post,Yes i did go to school but unfortunately when i did any kind of test or exam,I had to find the answers myself,If all the answers were plain and simple to see,We'd all have A levels,Not possible i'm affraid.

Good morning
If at all possible,Look back on the 1st of nov this year,Newmarket the horses to concentrate on are Island house and Tees components,That 2nd numerical picture is quite evident in these horses.

Two class/form horses of note today are Covent Garden 12.45 Muss and Gralmano 1.45 Muss, though in my view only Covent Garden should be backed as a good thing.

CG has already stepped up to further than the minimum winning in better class than today and going righthanded is not a problem.

Gralmano has so far been kept to the minimum trips and has raced righthanded once when pulled up, albeit in better class. He did beat a decent horse though last time, so can't be ignored, but another horse in the race today, Indian Venture, has the class to win such a race as todays. The latter was pitched in out of his depth first time up over chases. The race is a conflict for me, so no selection.

It will be interesting to see the market for Covent Garden, but I will be on at better than 8/13.

I cant find anything in the right races, the nearest to bets though, for me, are denmark and clear dawn.

I think covent garden was the bet last time.

There are 3 apparent 'Good things' today, but all have questions to answer, so caution is advised,viz;
Covent Garden... has not shown he will be better at 3m, and it appears that he is running here to take advantage of the ground.
Gralmano...ver similar to the above, even after his 12f York win, his trainer still said he needed shorter.
Miss Champers
Racing on a slower surface today, and has already had one poor run on soft ground.

They may all win, but there is an element of gamble with each one, therefore no bet should be the policy.
Luck to all.

going back to what i said about other oppurtunities,if i can get 5/4 9/4 plus for gralmano/indian venture i will dutch the pair using 10% of my bank 6% and 4% this should insure around a 30% profit.

Going back to an earlier post where you stated that vdw backed only 20% of horses he thought should win.

You offered the possible solution that not all class form horses win, which soon becomes apparent when you have a go.

My point is, I think VDW would have easily been able to identify which c/f would win as opposed to those that would not, of the ones that he KNEW would win, I think that he would have backed only 20% of those.

Well done with covent garden.

Now dont take this the wrong way Guest, as I know you know, and you have proven many times. I cant find many of his examples that were short prices and covent garden was hardly a little owl was it?

i'm also going to play in the 3.35 at southwell Siena star/Duncan Dock/Marengo 4% 3% 3% Provided the prices are something near those quoted in r/p

You say covent garden was a bet lto,So was Gralmano my friend.

I wouldnt ignore star of normandie either if I was making a book.

Im an interested observer of this page as I well remember all the original material in the handicap - and obviously a number of you are very well versed with the workings of the method - but I wonder would vdw have bet in such low class races and I always had in the back of my mind that he only bet when no element of a gamble was allowed to creep in - which would indicate that the number of bets struck would be quite low - which suites some peoples temperement but not others.

Barney - I was hoping that my comparison of the two class/horses I outlined today would answer any likely queries.

One had shown a step up in class and trip was no problem, but the other had been restricted to the minimum. Similarities between Covent Garden and Ascencia also exsisted. Remember, CG was dropping a fair way in class today measured doubly by VDWs approach.

Anyway, nice to get something right today.

Yesterdays G hall post is another masterpiece, illustrating the VERY narrow line we are trying to balance on. even though the uplift was a bit much for welsh dancer it just goes to show how strong a method it is.

PS. I had overlooked those two, but it will now help me apply it even better, off now to the 1978 scottish national what an evening thats going to be.

[This message was edited by Barney on December 17, 2002 at 05:06 PM.]

To all interested members.

To me Covent Garden had everything going for it today,if my understanding of the methods are correct.A bit similar to Tees Components on his penultimate run(I learnt from that race). Last week Cape Stormer had the same.

The bugbear,Tees Components yesterday,ok price would put one off,but would he have been a vdw type yesterday if price was more realistic?would he have counted among the 20%losers?

This is what baffles me,I can find the winners but am unable to eradicate enough losers to achieve the required strike rate,any comments.

Barney - The data given last night for the horses mentioned in the early letters lends further evidence to the idea that a win last time out does not always mean a horse is in form.

From some recent posts, I suspect some are still holding a lot of faith in ORs. VDW only mentioned them once and it was not in a positive light. They were also very hard to come by on a daily basis and are not even listed in old form books.

I am interested to know why some people think VDW would have evaluated a horses ability or class on anything other than what he outlined. A little was left to complete, as he said, but it is actually quite obvious if one thinks about the whole process as an ongoing one.

A little of what was left to complete showed up in Covent Gardens race today.You gave an almighty clue in a post the other day.

I am in full agreement with you r.e Tees components and cape stormer,I wouldn't have backed Covent Garden,But guest did,And well done to him,I looked at 2 today,Iv'e stopped betting for a while on the vdw front,So didn't back them they were Ballystone and Audacter,Again there seems to be so many interpretations It really is very difficult sometimes,From my point of view you try to help posters,But sometimes your not sure wether your hindering there progress,Not really what you wanted to hear i suppose,But that's the way i see it.