For a man who once boasted 10 from 12 bets,Your firing on all four in the tipping challenge with a massive 20% what's happened have the wheels fell off

I fell into the old trap of skimming the process in a lot of races today. This was partly due to preparing a detailed analysis for the board which is something I had decided to cease doing because it was affecting my evaluation time. Still, at least I actually clearly indicated what I thought about each race.

I long ago accepted that members deserved to see some evidence and posted selections frequently since last Cheltenham festival. I gather Epiglotis is gathering info regards these selections and I hope he includes all the ones I said I would back.

Regards Horus, he was put over too far with too much weight last time and had to be considered on his previous run. In the end the mare excelled herself, but why didn't she do it when another in the field beat her over c&d last time?

Anyway, I think it best if I keep quiet now until the Cheltenham festival starts. Come that Tuesday in March I'll be back with detailed evaluations of the races I find something to bet in. And I fully expect them to win.

So until Cheltenham then, best of luck to all.

Why skim the process,When it's your livelihood at stake.

Fulham,

Just because a class horse can win once on a track doesn't mean the track suits. Best Mate did it this year, I think the only reason he won was because the going came up soft. I think you have to agree he didn't run to his true form. I may have overstated Wayward Lad being a course specialist 2 wins doesn't constitute that. Perhaps I should have said a horse that run much better on flat courses, speed courses. I do think the rider by VDW, about not having the bet if the race was run at Cheltenham, says a lot.

I don't know if you remember, I did say the poor run by Horus had nothing to do with the extra distance or weight. It was down solely to the going, put a line through any run that is on worse than good. Work his consistency rating not counting those races, and I think you will see a different horse.

The last thing I want to do is bring this thread into disrepute, and give the knockers ammunition. I think most of the members would rather believe Guest has the answers. I am going to cry off for a while. However, I do think if anyone is interested, there are more than enough posted for them to follow the thinking. If anyone wants/needs my help my e-mail address is somewhere amongst them.

So good luck to you all, and it really does work.

Yep Lady Cricket was a bet!

Be Lucky

Barney used the expression 'divide and conquer', it's actually not like that at all. I've just been through the thread from the beginning and there's a lot of good stuff in it, the main problem with it is it's ridiculously slow because everyone refuses to answer questions. This has gone to absurd limits which is what I was pissed off about, specifically Fulham's reply to Grundy. Grundy wants to make a thorough study of a particular race and accordingly wants information about a preceding race, there is no way that handing out that kind of information can compromise the profitability of the method, is there? Yet here is Fulham's reply:
Grundy
I'm sorry but I'm not prepared to be more explicit than in my previous post, but with that and various ones of Guest's you've got more than a head's start on simply reading the VDW letters and articles.

This is bullshit of the highest order, later Fulham advises Grundy not to ask me for any help as I haven't got the books, that would be fine if those with the books were any help. Imagine you're walking down the street and someone stops you and says, "Sorry, I'm shortsighted, does that say Columbines over there?" do you read it for them or do you reply as Fulham did? Grundy hasn't got the form book containing the details of a particular race of interest, is the social level of this thread so decayed that no-one's going to provide them? What about Fulham's answer, it looks like he hasn't even understood the question, his helpfull suggestion is to read various posts of Guest's, Guest has published about 450 posts. The exercise of looking at Guest's results isn't meant to in any way belittle Guest, the point is to show that Guest is nowhere near achieving the aims mentioned as VDW's benchmark in terms of strike rate. On the question of secrecy about VDW's methods generally; it's often stressed that this is not a 'system' but a 'method', if it were a system with set rules that produced 80% winners I can understand that those in possession of such a system might want to keep the rules to themselves they probably would also avoid mentioning the system at all or dropping 'hints' about it, however we're constantly reminded that this is a method that doesn't churn out selections but needs applying by the practicioner, so why the secrecy about for example the interpretation of form? In nearly 400 pages the question of form has been consistently brushed aside despite it's central nature to the method. Barney posted a potentially interesting observation about form on the VDW(a) thread but unfortunately he received a negative initial reaction. Guest started posting pre-race selections on March 12th and has continued intermittently until the present, during that period he gave 190 clearly stated selections of which 66 won their races, that's a strike rate of 35%. This is nowhere near the 80% that has been claimed as the 'benchmark', in short Guest can benefit from opening up more to questions and getting other people's ideas on improving his performance. That, of course, is not true just of Guest but I think it's obvious to any long term member why I chose him. Guest has said I have no chance of learning the method, it's true, for one thing I'm not interested in 'learning' it, but as I have often stated I am interested in the ideas involved. Anyway, that's long enough, you get the idea. For the record despite his low strike rate Guest made a profit of 77 points on the bets he posted ie 40% on investment, as he only posted bets irregularly I would say at 200 quid per point he would make a very good living, so from that view point my apologies to Guest for describing his results as rubbish.

Determined

Just a little light-hearted banter with Johnd. He has, after all, had a few pops at me!

As I posted earlier, I found the principal races too difficult. For me, there were two strong c/fs today, both at Cheltenham. La Landiere, which Mike highlighted - a clear c/f, proven to be able to carry today's weight in an even higher class handicap, and down slightly in class today. Don Fernando, a c/f with strong form in the book and easily forecastable as having the beating of the favourite, whose form was much weaker. Alas, what was not so forecastable was that a rank outsider, with some exposed form which fully justified its market position, would beat DF, thus turning what would have been an excellent day into an average one. Still, that's racing.


Guest

Thanks for the comment re Horus, which I'll reflect upon. Whether he was regarded as a form horse or not, I think you, Graham and I were all agreed it was too tricky a race to bet in.


Mtoto

I think we will have to agree to differ. For me, the evidence that VDW used the ability rating as his measure of class with NH and older Flat horses is clear, and thanks to Guest I now feel I have a reasonable understanding of the so-called "missing link" on the form assessment side (as Graham has clearly shown he has, too). Using these two central pillars of VDW's approach, I've now checked through over 70 of his examples, including all those where he explicitly names the c/f and other form or non-form horses, and it resolves the lot. That, for me, is very compelling.


Epiglotis

The results of your researches pretty well match my records, and you see that different conclusions are reached when they are based on facts, not ignorance. Buy those books!

You might care to consider the profitability of that sub-set of Guest's bets which you have by now listed that were (a) c/fs and (b) had sps above 2/1. Then you'll have a reasonable sense of what can be achieved by pursuing what I regard as a conservative policy.

Good post sir.

Everytime you mention 'A winner in a race' i can see it staring at me,This has happened right from the time you mentioned Edredon Bleu when running against flagship uberalles,a long time ago now.I'm sure i'm on the same wavelength.Incidently i don't know if you took much notice about what i tried to convey to you,But it keeps coming up trumps,Two good recent examples,Piccled and Be my belle.

Investor,
I'm glad its working for you. A very good question to Guest BTW.
regards

Don't go, this thread needs you. Are you going to feed us to the dinasours?
Good luck for the future, come back soon.

mtoto, excellant evaluations regarding horus,wayward lad,could i ask you some questions regarding speed figures, i have been trying to contact via email alas without success,could you contact me, many thanks grundy,

john duncan

you are one cheeky B****** you.

talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth you are unbelievable.

people come and here and try to help, even ignoramouses like you, and you have the gall to say I dont like how you say this I dont like how you say that.

you wheel round your trumbril, pointing fingers at whoever, based on no understanding of VDW, you should be eating cake.

Hi all,
As a new member it would seem that I have joined when everyone else is saying goodbye. Mtoto is fed up, and now Guest says he won't be back until the Cheltenham Festival in March. Hope this isn't going to set a new trend on this site, it took me long enough to get on.
Anyway back to my heading. I have seriously read The Golden Years many many times, as I'm sure have many others. On reading it again this week in the early hours of the morning something seemed to stand out like a sore thumb although I must have read it a thousand times before.
I was going to ask our experts advice on this and believe there are still members who can help.
A lot of talk goes on about a missing link, a key call it what you will and we are always being told to READ WHAT IS THERE, but I now believe the answer to the whole thing is in the Little Owl and Sunset Cristo examples that he writes about.
He has always said it isn't hidden it is all there for everyone to see it just isn't highlighted. I don't know why I didn't spot it before but I must'nt have read what was there.
Read them and see if you agree. He confirms it later when he says these are the only two he will bet on from the examples given.
See you soon, Mike.

Mickeddy,
I think i know what your on about in the Sunset Christo example the 3 most consistent from the f/cast were Tragus 111, King Or Country 142, Sunset Christo 111, The Engineer 512,i know what percentages Sunset Christo & Tragus tally to i.e 33% each, he shows us this but what % totals do King Or Country & The Engineer tally to? & how would we go about adding up other form combinations that he didn`t specifically name? i have a good reason for asking this & if someone could help it would be much appreciated.

Walter

For combinations where VDW did not quote a figure, the only way of calculating them I can think of is via the RacingSystemsBuilder software.

Guest quoted some figures in a post within the last few days, and they may include some not in VDW's articles. No doubt he'll advise if they were generated by an publicly available means other than RSB.

_ 28 pts on the tipping challenge,At 100 pound levels thats 2,800 quid you really know your subject dont you.

Next week I am going to try dutching 5/4 shots; after the result is known, of course. That would really put me up there with the elite.
Two other things that should stand me in good stead are my ability to read and add up!

epiglotis
My records for Guests bets are a little different
to yours .ihave 50 winners from 183 bets and 27points
lsp on each horse .It may be i have missed some
winners somehow.


maggsy

Walter
I think these percentages are those observed in actual results, they dont represent probabilities. The most reliable way would be to look up results yourself but I dont see the point and neither do I see what it has to do with a key.

Maggsy
That's quite a significant difference. I only looked at bets definitly stated to be bets, if they were price-dependent I checked the price, for Dutch bets I allocated one point per selection rather than balancing the book. I dont undertstand your, "27points
lsp on each horse "? There are several bets hidden in text passages and some that it would be too tiresome to identify, unspecified horse's name!

[This message was edited by epiglotis on January 26, 2003 at 03:29 AM.]