Mtoto

I do not see where the difference is in what you
researched with RSB than what I did. I am
interested in winners, not those that cannot win;
like nearly 80% of all horses so why waste the time! All non winners prove is that they cannot win either up or down; or am I missing the point!

As far as ability is concerned, as you like to push the point and this is your right, I intend to make this the subject of my next but one article (sorry but this week's has already been submitted) during a brief respite from the phone!

I accept fully your thoughts about 'my titled friend' however, none of us can prove conclusively that this is not how VDW worked!
It is always easier after the event! I have asked him to explain, he usually does, and will certainly keep the pot boiling!

regards
Marchwood

Is this what you intrepret as Ability?

'Re vdw's first letters he didn't mention ability as such, he did say check to see how the horses had run in their last races. Who they had beaten, or who beat them, class of race, S.P, weight, etc. The horse he came up with is not one that would have been chosen by most of your adaptations. To be fair, on the face of it I can't see how he chose the winner, but that is another story'

You will recognise the above as it was taken from your last posting. I cannot reconcile your stand on this point as you now say he did not mention ability as such (I seem to have read this somewhere before!!) and now relate to form digest. In the two letters I have so far analysed the matter was not clearcut, nor the actual word ABILITY which you were concerned with even mentioned. I think you have been back to the bookcase.

I should like to add that I also feel that our idea was to set out to help people with this thread and I feel that we are losing the plot
just recently.

regards
Marchwood

Marchwood.

Missing the point.

You state 80% of all horses never win, it may be right but until the horse retires how do you know which category the horse is going to fall into?

In group 1 races there were 103 winners from 652 runners that were running in the same class which equals 16%. there where 195 winners from 2094 runners going up in class that is 9% winners.It goes on in every group, there may be more winners but there are a lot more runners. In every case the biggest % of winners come from horses running in the same or lower class.
The amount of winners only tells half the story!

I'm afraid you have lost me with the remark about ability. Surely ability is what the horse is capable off. The only way to do check that is to look at it's past races and make a judgement. Based on what the horse has done in the past, class of race, class of opponents, etc. That is suggested in the first letters, when I said ability wasn't mentioned, I should have said a formula to make this judgement wasn't given.

If you feel this thread is going nowhere, I will stop posting. I have said I am willing to answer any questions that I can, and I have answered your question. However it does worry me that your posting will be accepted as gospel, and will mislead people. I just wanted to show there is another point of view.

Regards

I strongly suspect that you both know what you are talking about even though you fail to agree/disagree. Marchwood I should like to say that , in my opinion, the speed figure of a horse is, usually, vital. If it cant run fast enough it won't win unless all the other runners are at the wrong distance, on the wrong going, not fit or handicapped by too much weight. Mtoto reckons that a high weight wont stop a good horse and low weight wont improve a "mediocre" horse. That is his opinion. Personally I am not sure. I know for an absolute certain fact that, sometimes your (Marchwood) theories of 121,112 etc last placings are complete and utter rubbish, I once wrote on the old board that 1004/PP05 was absolutely acceptable if that horse had won an A and now was in an E, and had scored a speed figure way above todays runners. I made a lot of money in the nineties by deliberately looking for horses that were , say, 10000/PP, or variations on that, that completely throws your 122, 121, 221, etc thing straight out of the window. I have said before that I am pretty certain you have made money backing horses your way, your logic seems pretty sound. But I shall say, OFTEN, WHAT'S OBVIOUS ISN'T! What the trainers do (I have already explained this to Mtoto, but no response) Marchwood , is that they win or come near to winning in a high class race, then dont run it for maybe 1 or 2 years. Then they put it in low class races and pull it up a couple of times or make sure it is unplaced, then when the weight has dropped to bottom weight or it is now in an F or any combination of the above and the price is massive, they just win it. Examples are: SLAUGHT SON, STUNNING STUFF, MONTAGARD,MISS SOUTER,DEEPENDALE. Just look em up on Racing Post website and you will see. Anyway, you have proved personally that the general accepted percentage of winners, like 111, 101 or whatever is not true anyway, and varies from year to year, so how come such a big deal about such figs? What matters is how fast the horse can run as a first priority, then you take the rest of the factors into consideration,
Yours Swish

when ability is considered and class winners, are the percentage figures given across all courses???

do some courses favour up in class and some favour down in class or is it even across the board.

I strongly suspect that you both know what you are talking about even though you fail to agree/disagree. Marchwood I should like to say that , in my opinion, the speed figure of a horse is, usually, vital. If it cant run fast enough it won't win unless all the other runners are at the wrong distance, on the wrong going, not fit or handicapped by too much weight. Mtoto reckons that a high weight wont stop a good horse and low weight wont improve a "mediocre" horse. That is his opinion. Personally I am not sure. I know for an absolute certain fact that, sometimes your (Marchwood) theories of 121,112 etc last placings are complete and utter rubbish, I once wrote on the old board that 1004/PP05 was absolutely acceptable if that horse had won an A and now was in an E, and had scored a speed figure way above todays runners. I made a lot of money in the nineties by deliberately looking for horses that were , say, 10000/PP, or variations on that, that completely throws your 122, 121, 221, etc thing straight out of the window. I have said before that I am pretty certain you have made money backing horses your way, your logic seems pretty sound. But I shall say, OFTEN, WHAT'S OBVIOUS ISN'T! What the trainers do (I have already explained this to Mtoto, but no response) Marchwood , is that they win or come near to winning in a high class race, then dont run it for maybe 1 or 2 years. Then they put it in low class races and pull it up a couple of times or make sure it is unplaced, then when the weight has dropped to bottom weight or it is now in an F or any combination of the above and the price is massive, they just win it. Examples are: SLAUGHT SON, STUNNING STUFF, MONTAGARD,MISS SOUTER,DEEPENDABLE. Just look em up on Racing Post website and you will see. Anyway, you have proved personally that the general accepted percentage of winners, like 111, 101 or whatever is not true anyway, and varies from year to year, so how come such a big deal about such figs? What matters is how fast the horse can run as a first priority, then you take the rest of the factors into consideration,
Yours Swish

I have just posted same message twice by mistake. I thought I was editing first message, DEEPENDALE to DEEPENDABLE. How do you edit messages then?
Yours Swish

Dear Barney,
Don't know, wish I did
Yours Swish

We seem to have reached a state of utter confusion
and losing the whole point about VDW although I agree that much of the subject matter is truly relevant. I started this thread initially to learn like, presumably, all the others and I hope that I have not given the idea that I am a know all - this is far from the truth. Mtoto's postings show that he has spent many hours researching the subject and looks at some of the
aspects of the methods in a different light to me.
In the books on the subject, VDW listened to different views but I did not ever feel that he saw any other ways of doing things other than in his own way. Maybe he was right!

As far as what Swish says about last three placings, he has done me a slight injustice as if he reads my article on the matter, he will clearly see that I am clear that they do not mean the same as they did 20+years ago.

Regarding Barney's question about courses, I did see some results from research that certain courses indicate better results from horses coming from a lower class track and those that fail at the higher grade tracks often succeed at
certain lower tracks. I will try and search out this information and post it for the benefit of all.

I have also been back to the books and found the VDW statement that I saw more than once in the Sports Forum pages - 'ABILITY BASED ON WINNING IS THE CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING CLASS AS FAR AS THE PUNTER IS CONCERNED'.

regards
Marchwood

Further to the letter of mine about high priced winners. If any of you are interested in looking any of those horses up, Montagard should be spelt, Montagnard,
Cheers
Swish.

Marchwood.

You say the thread is missing the point of vdw. I would like to suggest it is you that is missing the point. You are trying to do the very thing vdw was strongly against. You are trying to turn his methods into systems, and falling way short on his work ethic. You seem to be saying ability is class what ever YOU call it you can't just ignore it. If as you say you are a busy man, why don't you choose one race and study it. There can never be a system to fit every race, you start a system with preconceived ideas. You also say vdw didn't appear to listen to others, what we don't know is how he received logical ideas if any where fourth coming. I think he was to clever not to have at least have given them some thought. He did admit there where other ways, but he said he found his way the best, not the only way. When this thread started I had hoped for some logical thoughts on how to improve (if possible) on the basics.

Swish.
I agree with a lot of what you say. I would add, just as important as speed, is the class in which it was achieved. You have a very nice little system, that works because you are looking for a drop in class, from the race the figure was achieved in. I also think it is possible the results aren't as good in top races and handicaps for the reasons I explained. In the top races you usually have the top horses. Good horses run faster longer, so the horse with a good speed figure but inferior class will struggle. He will not be able to have a blow, because the pace is faster longer. The same applies with a step up in class with handicaps. I am going to include some statistics that may show you why I believe weight is not the stopper but class.

Handicaps only

Total winners - 27,371 (excluding 12 having first run in Britain)
carrying >14lb less - 1947 (7.1%) - from 31,399 runners (6.2%SR)
carrying 9-14lb less - 2451 (8.9%) - from 37,381 runners (6.5%SR)
carrying 5-8lb less - 2760 (10%) - from 37,927 runners (7.2%SR)
carrying 1-4lb less - 3784 (13.8%) - from 47,749 runners (7.9%SR)
carrying same - 1512 (5.5%) - from 19,176 runners (7.9%SR)
carrying 1-4lb more - 4270 (15.6%) - from 46,878 runners (9.1%SR
carrying 5-8lb more - 3804 (13.8%) - from 39,191 runners (9.7%SR)
carrying 9-14lb more - 3802 (13.8%) - from 37,375 runners (10.1%SR)
carrying >14lb more - 3041 (11.1%) - from 29,180 runners (10.4%SR)

TOTAL CARRYING LESS WEIGHT - 10,942 (39.9%)
TOTAL CARRYING SAME WEIGHT - 1512 (5.5%)
TOTAL CARRYING MORE WEIGHT - 14,917 (54.5%)
FIGURES SHOW A CONSTANTLY RISING STRIKE RATE WITH INCREASED WEIGHT

Regards

Dear Mtoto,
Firstly, I totally respect your views, and obvious hard work you have put into it. No matter how flippant I sound at times, if I wasnt extremely interested in all (you and others) have to say I wouldn't be bothering coming to this board atall. As Marchwood said (about himself) I must come across as a "know it all" as well at times. And of course I certainly do not know it all and I should guess I never will. (By the way Marchwood you don't, so do not worry). As we have all said we cant see each other etc we can only try and write as best as poss. I often think I must appear to be always arguing with a lot of you, and sometimes I am I suppose, but there are other times I am just trying to make you see things from another angle. Thank you for posting up these statistics about weight, the most striking thing there is the extremely poor s/r of ones carrying same weight. I never want to back one with same weight again! I would not have guessed that atall! Then I see clearly that ones with more weight faired better than ones with less weight by 16%. Do you know the s.p.s of these horses? Which would bring the larger return?. I ask because its obvious from that small sample I gave you in the nineties that those trainers deliberatly lost, PU etc, because they knew they would win when the weight was low enough (STUNNING STUFF was top weight I think, but I cant remember without looking it up again). So low weight MUST be an advantage then if the horse has scored a good speed fig with high weight? I never used to write all my bets down in those days. There were many more than that but I cant remember their names. What I shall do is relook at those races in detail and let you know what I think. Perhaps you could too. I realise you wont want to look through 30+ races per runner, but you do not need to, just look at when they won at big prices and backtrack a bit to see the information about their previous races before they won ESPECIALLY SPEED FIG. You will notice the overall record of all those I named was appalling. If one was looking for consistency or figs of e.g.121 (sorry Marchwood I am not trying to be clever, well I am , but not clever in a nasty way!)you would never have picked them ever. I have never met anyone in my life (apart from my best pal, because we worked these winners out together!) Who has tried to pick winners from this TOTALLY different angle. The two times I backed SLAUGHT SON ,firstly won at 16-1 (Tote paid 65-1) I did it on tote and second time 50-1 but I still did it tote and I think it only paid 25-1. Can you imagine the thrill I got getting BRILLIANT winners like that! So you see Mtoto, it may be that even though more high weight horses win, it could well be that the s.p. of low weight winners totally dwarfs the s.p. of high weight winners. I do not know though, but I would like to. The key to these winners was high speed fig, deliberate crap runnings, dropped in weight or class, or both then go for it. So, to conclude, one can take the approach, top few weights, high consistency, or bottom weights no consistency whatsoever. I do not know really which is best, I only really know that a high speed fig has to be in there somewhere. In fact I am going to start looking for these type of runners again, especially as I said elsewhere, we don't have to sit up all night looking through old form books, now we have computers. By the way, this approach DOES NOT WORK in non-handicaps whatsoever.
Yours Swish

I have just spent ages posting up details about when this horse won at 33-1 on 7/12/95 but its simply just dissapeared. I shall do it again later
Yours Swish

Is the strategy you describe the speciality of particular trainers? If so it would be a great time saver to know which ones.

Dear Epiglotis,
I am sorry, but, no, we never discovered if it was a policy of particular trainers, although it might well be. It was damned hard work looking two or three years of form books trying to see what they were up to, I'll tell you! Also of course, when a horse hasn't run for two years Top Speed doesn't bother putting any speed figure in the topspeed box. (We called these horses "empty boxes"!) So the only way, then, you could find the speed figure was to go through ALL its races one by one , and then every other horse in the race to compare their figs. Now, luckily, we're only a few clicks away from sorting that out much more easily,
Yours Swish

Swish.

My records on speed figures don't go back as far as Stunning Stuff race so I can't comment on the speed element. he was in fact the top weight being dropped in class.

As for your other question about the return on high weights as opposed to low. I don't keep records of horses I don't back, but I will say I think many people are put off by a big weight and the returns can be staggering. I have back winners at all prices from 50/1 down. Keep in mind these are the horses the handicapper says are the best horses in the race. It is also a fact that many of these horses show a good consistency rating as suggested by vdw, although not as high as the figures advocated by Mr Anderson in Marchwood's article. I would suggest there are other ways of judging consistency and ability/class that are as good as those suggested by vdw.

Regards

Mtoto and Swish

Firstly, I do not have a point for Mtoto other than to repeat the following:

'I would suggest there are other ways of judging consistency and ability/class that are as good as those suggested by vdw'.

As for our good friend Swish I give you great credit for your posting on another thread and think you have got a FINEFORM HAT AS WELL AS A VDW HAT. Merge the two and call yourself SFV and you could well be on to yet another fortune!

On the matter of Fineform, I am doing some research in my allocated Leisure Time into Clive
Holt's Fineform matters. I have always found them to be, in my own mind, proximates to my own
thinking and also when time is short a quick and
straightforward way of backing horses. And of
course you do not have to buy the racing papers!
In my past days, when I was working for an employer, a collegue and myself followed the Fineform Formula over the sticks and found this to
be reasonably successful, more than we had been on the flat.
The problem with Fineform was which race to bet in! It is to my mind worthy of attention!

regards
Marchwood

Dear Marchwood,
Firstly on that other board, which you introduced me to they all think he is an absolute rogue which is what I always thought. Why Fineform Max works is a mystery to me and why he doesnt tell all his subscribers this then is even more of a mystery,
Yours Swish

Dear Mtoto,
He was indeed top weight(jnt) dropped in class from 5k to 4k to 2k. His speed fig was 134 (139 adjusted), compared to the other runners:
COLUMNCILE BEST 75 (102)
PAPER STAR 108(119)
LA FONTAINBLEU 88 (109)
TIME ENOUGH 70 (98)
THE BOILER WHITE 115(120)
THE BUD CLUB 117 (127)
There was only one horse at the races unadjusted or otherwise. W 33-1 by a distance. More about the other horses I named soon,
Yours Swish

Fineform & Clive Holt

I am responding to your message on the new thread
and as it is fairly lengthy I have sent it to friend gummy for posting on!

All views are very welcome - Rogue or Clever Man?

regards
Marchwood