johnd
I like you,Shoot from the hip if people don't like it then i too won't apologise.I don't dislike you afterall i don't know you (mr 5 digit)But you came on this thread and maybe because the way i am you seemed arrogant and still do,I'm sorry if that sticks in your throat but that's the way it is.

You have attacked fulham,More or less calling him a liar over Spirit Leader,He offered to show you proofMaybe it was the way the horse was selected that bothered you,I don't really know.You also continually have a pop at posters for saying they backed such and such after the event,yet you quite openly force 10/12 down our throats,But i wouldn't call you a liar,And then we have guest,Who never bothers anybody( i too have said some things i regret to this man)Who comes back on the board after quite a long absence,And all you seem to want to do is belittle him,Christ knows where this man get's his knowledge from,you only have to read his posts it's not the type of race it's the names and actual title of the race,This to me is a dedicated person,I like you have my own perception of the methods,But i would never try and belittle another poster the way you have.

Ivestor,

Are you going to pay him a visit?

lll
Who

Crock, i was genuinely disappointed with la landieres performance in the race as i thought she would win more easily than she actually did, i read todays comments in the racing post the trainer reckoned she was at her peak at Kempton in the Racing Post Chase, another interesting fact leading up to the last day was that horses who had more than 4 runs this season had not fared too well, sudden shock apart.This changed a little on the final day where both la landiere & spirit leader obliged, hope your watching determined that method of yours from way back may still carry some credance .

JIB - Whoever said the ability rating never got it wrong? In it's basic raw format it will not provide consistent winners. However, used in conjunction with form it does show who has the best form.

Your comments regarding Rooster Booster make no sense at all really. If you really believe Rooster Booster had the same ability all along then I would say our thinking is miles apart. Ability can rise, fall or remain static. Sometimes it rises dramatically and when this is backed up by good form then the horse becomes worthy of very close attention.

The official handicapper just did what he does in every half decent handicap. He puts the winner up a hefty amount, very often 7-14 lb these days, and puts the 2nd or 3rd up a pound or two also. His approach assumes every horse in a finish has improved which is absolute rubbish. It's well worth remembering that the handicapper cannot and doesn't bet so we will never know how good at finding winners he is.

You may or may not remember a handicap at Newbury back in late 2000 when Valiramix 11-13 was left clear at the second last by Rooster Booster 11-2 who seemed to be travelling much better than the winner at the time. It would be some 15 months before Valiramix would show far some horses can improve when he was injured in the 2002 Champion Hurdle when cantering. It would be a further year before Rooster Booster emerged as a live Champion hurdle contender likewise and of course now his rating has gone up in accordance. However, his rating before the race clearly showed his merit for what he had acheived up to that point and yet it was still enough to have him shortlisted with one other horse to be crowned the champion hurdler. How is that a shortfall in the ratings effectiveness?

Please don't say Hors La Loi III, Copeland or Landing Light were rated higher. None of them were form horses and class is no good without form. That goes for ALL races. Think about it.

GUEST
Are you seriously suggesting that Copeland, Hors La Loi, or Landing Light, would have beaten Rooster Booster, had they been in form? I would find that very hard to believe.

BOLLOCKS to you all.

John, why do you persist? They are not worth your time. No matter how often you show they are a bunch of tubes they will never see the light.

I like this "tubes". Is the implication 'chordata and nothing more' or is it an expression I'm probably unfamiliar with on account of age or location or does it have a personally created meaning?

Jimmy,
Do you mean John in Brazil or JohnD or both?

Cheers
Swish

JIB

The more I think about Rooster Booster's career to date, the more it seems to me that it is in fact an excellent example of why VDW's ability rating is effective.

Forgetting the very early races when RB was a maiden, he first gained an AR on 6/1/00 when winning a class 43. His AR was thus 43 until he next won, 17 races later, on 14/3/02, when it became 187.

Although considerable research would be necessary to be precise, it seems unlikely that RB would have been one of the top ability-rated horses in more than a very few of those 17 races, and still less often the c/f. And, of course, however well he was running, the plain fact is that he failed to win 17 times on the trot, and VDW's approach is primarily about finding WINNERS.

Granted that, on a quick check, RB was far from being the c/f for last year's County Hurdle and was therefore not a likely selection (though clearly a form horse dropping a long way in class), thereafter he would have featured high in the rank order of in form ability ratings, and more than once was a very solid c/f.

Thus, from the VDW c/f perspective, RB was unlikely to have been a serious contender for the large majority of races in his long losing run, whereas he has always been high in the ranking of c/f horses, if not the actual c/f, during his latest run of five wins out of six races. This is precisely what one wants from VDW's approach.


Johnd

You have raised the question of whether some of the higher rated on ability might have beaten RB had they been in form. Obviously we can never know for sure. But to take Copeland as an example, twice early last year he beat RB under circumstances that suggest he'd have done so, or at least gone close, at level weights. Had he sustained or improved upon that level of performance, and been a clear in form horse on Tuesday, who can say for sure which would have won?

The whole point of VDW's approach is that it brings together what he saw as the two fundamental elements: neither, in the absence of the other, being sufficient for a confident bet. And avoiding bets where a horse highly rated on ability is not a form horse, or where the crowd get carried away in supporting an in form horse with inferior ability to other in form horses is a valuable aspect of making profit. After all, if one wasn't as confident as you about RB for the Champion Hurdle, at least no serious follower of VDW's approach would have lost money on the likes of the other three you named in relation to the race.

guest,one month you say ability never changes,now you say ability can rise,fall or remain static,whats next month,abililty does not matter?
i said months ago that horses lose ability,then you got on your pedestal and said this is rubbish,you go round in more circles than an indy car driver,you must be getting dizzy

Epi, when I wrote that it was near the end of a bottle of Vino Collapso and I wasn't thinking. The expressin "tube" is a common one in the Strathclyde region and implies hollowness.

Swish, JIB.

JIB - You are completely missing the point. The fact is that last season, at no time did VDWs method suggest Rooster Booster would win any race he was in and he only won once by my recall. It was a different story this year though, could that have something to do with the horse getting it's head in front finally and strengthening up as the trainer suggested was the case?

Your comments and views on the OR just show how ingrained these ideas are on you. The whole point about VDWs approach is that it goes against the herd and not only that it provides profit year after year. Fulhams post amply demonstrates why the ability works when coupled with form. Nothing works in isolation in racing, absolutely nothing. At the end of the day the OR is just one persons appraisal of a horse based on the assumption that every horse in the frame has either improved or run to form. You may as well call Colin Davey or Henry Rix if you are prepared to take one persons opinion on a horse at face value. VDWs ratings don't use opinions they use facts. Cold unemotional facts.

As a final word to this, JIB don't get too critical of the "back slapping" as you call it on the past week. Personally I have given umpteen selections before the races on this thread over the last year and if you had backed them all you would have made a very nice profit. Besides that, I gave my selections this week in a clear and concise manner with full confidence in them all. The ones that didn't make it went very close in the main and I even gave the one-two in the Queen Mother at 13/8 and 12/1. I also dismissed plenty of public fancies confident in their inability to win their races. Why don't YOU show us all how to make money from the handicappers opinion?

JohnD- The question you are posing is pointless in the overall scheme of things. The three horses were NOT form horses so how could their ability help them unless there was a very real chance they would hit form in the Champion hurdle?

I think you commented on a recent race something to the effect of how a certain horse could not be a form horse yet get placed in the finish. The answer is obvious. Most horses cannot sustain a certain level of form for long periods, but at some point they will run back into some sort of form. It's no good trying to pre-empt this though, better to stick to the FORM horses.

When Copeland,Landing Light and Hors La Loi III were in form they were beating some good horses, in fact Copeland beat Intersky Falcon and Rooster Booster last season and everyone knows what the other two did.

What is so hard to understand about a horse needing to be in form for it's ability to count for anything?

Greg - I think I said that a horse may lose it's form. The rating goes down when the horse continually contests lower class races succesfully, but the rating is not the be all and end all which is the main point of the OR versus AR debate. The AR is a guide that when used in conjunction with the other class ratings and form (as VDW saw it) proves more reliable than any persons opinion.

I was going to continue for a short time posting evaluations, but given the know all attitude of some I don't think I'll bother. As I said, I stopped posting for about 6 weeks and aimed to return to prove the methods effectiveness. This was done, so the aim was accomplished and there really is no more to say.
Take it or leave it.

It's time for me to call it a day on the posting front.

I gather some have found some extra points to note from the past weeks evaluations, so I'm pleased for them and wish them well. The hecklers and doom merchants will not be missed by me, but I hope they start offering some useful insights into VDWs ideas for the interested parties on this VDW thread.

I'd say it's long odds they will though.

guest,there is no attitude from me,im just pulling you up on something you said,you did not mention form,the words you said were ability never fades,now you move the goalposts.
you are a very tempremental old soul.

guest,it makes no difference to me whether you stay or go,im sure you just like reading,guest,please dont go every month or two.
but think of all the people on here who enjoy reading your posts,before you have your next tantrum

Jimmy
Thanks for the explanation. A nice word, reminds me also of the 'shells' of the kabbalists.

Guest
You raised an important point but if you think about it you'll see that you too are supporting a position against the ability rating.

Crock
How did horses that were top on both ability rating and official rating perform? I dont expect you to go out of your way but if you have the average starting price and average finishing position for horses top rated on both it might be interesting. (In case anyone cares, I dont think official ratings are generally useful.)

Greg
I also found the remark about ability fluctuating very amusing.