Fulham,
To save us searching for the thread you referred to, please post up your reasons for not posting selections.

Do you post your selections on any other forums?
Alf

Alf

You'll find my reasons in my post on the very short "VDW Selections" thread started by Gummy personally.

I do not systematically post my selections anywhere, but I've posted a few before the off - winners and losers - on a variety of other boards, including the VDW Methodology and VDW Analysis boards, all postings on both of which are extant and still accessible to members, of which there are 60 or so in the first case, some of whom are also members here.

I delete my post as I shouldnt rant about fulham. sorry

Institute of the Longwinded and Disingenuous

A2,

There is a town here on the Guyanese side of the border called Lethem. Once a year they have a fair where the populace take part in various games. One of the most popular is trying to get hold of a greased pig.

I am always reminded of this scene when I read Fulhams replies to straightforward, though awkward, questions.

The real reason Fulham does not post his selections is quite clear in the concluding paragraph of his penultimate post (the golfing one). His horror of embarassment is obvious.

[This message was edited by john in brasil on July 19, 2003 at 12:50 PM.]

JiB,

Another reason why Dr Fulham may not post pre race selections is that it would only take one line

III

Oh, you've guessed!

Too bad Fulham, your explanatory post on the previous page seemed to be going quite well so why oh why did you have to ruin it with the inane comment that makes up your last paragraph?
As for your reasons for not posting before the off they are not very credible if you are going to claim that you bet on winners after the event. You can have it one way or the other, post before and take the stick if they lose or post after and take the abuse without complaint.
The benefit in posting before the event is that you then have the right to criticise others if you so wish. The way you have carried on so far means that you have not earned the right to criticise anyone for their selections.
What I find hard to understand is your wish to, “soldier on, hoping that, with experience, our judgement improves.” While admitting that, “As yet, as far as I know, no-one else has shown that same level of successful last-stage judgement.”. Don’t you see that if you insist on secrecy and only discussing this with like minded people it is unlikely you are ever going to improve.
In any field, progress is made by, “Standing on the shoulders of giants”. The members of this board, collectively, have a vast wealth of racing knowledge which they would be prepared to share yet, when you are asked questions you generally reply with something like, “Go and spend a few hundred hours studying and then I may answer” don’t you realise that with this attitude you are never going to achieve your goal?
I personally don’t think VDW ever did achieve the figures that are attributed to him so I think you are striving for an unrealistic goal. But, I still believe that if you are ever going to come anywhere close you have to go about it the way others in the past have in other any other field. You have to put forward what you have and let it be debated and hopefully improved on. Yes, you have put hundreds of hours in and you may ask why should I give up what I know to someone who won’t put in the work? I’m sure we are all happy that Lister, Fleming and Pasteur didn’t think that way. Yes you can keep the seed corn for yourself and live meagrely on it for a short time, or you can sow the seeds and harvest a great crop.
This I am sure is what Swish hoped for when this thread was started.

Jimmy

If the members of this board wanted to undertake a collective project, such as creating a new system, I would agree with you. No one's contribution would be irrelevant, and by drawing on everyone's knowledge and experience something better might well be created than any of us individually could achieve.

But that is not the situation here, as far as I'm concerned. I am not trying to create something new, in effect to improve on VDW. I am just concerned more fully to understand how VDW worked. And the only people who can help me in this regard are those who already have a good understanding of that, preferably a better one than me. Hence, of course, the debt to Guest in particular. The quid pro quo is that I'm pleased to try to help those whose knowledge and experience of VDW's approach is currently less than mine, and I have certainly helped several posters here who were in that situation.

But there is a world of difference in getting/giving some helpful hints to those who, like oneself, are serious students of the texts and examples than in laying it all out on a plate for those who often haven't even bothered to read the texts, never mind study the examples.

As for achieving my goal, that rather depends on what it is. For the reason I tried to make clear in my last response to you, I think that few, if any, will genuinely achieve the level of performance VDW suggested that he had. But year-on-year improvement as understanding and experience grow is not perhaps unrealistic, and I'll be content with that. In golfing terms, winning the Open is, obviously, the goal of all who enter, but merely still to be in the field on the Sunday is quite something, and not without its financial reward.

Fulham.
I cannot find your explanation for not posting anything but disingenuous. It appears from the legnth and complexity of your answers that you are more than capable of defending yourself.

The logic that if you posted selections you would be under pressure to provide more and more explanations is flawed. The one thing that I have found on this forum (with one exception who is no longer amongst us) is that everyone respects members who have a go. Although Jimmy says that you would have to take the stick about losers, this is not something which happens anywhere else but on the VDW 80%.

You would be under no pressure whatsover to reveal your system because everyone knows that you follow VDW.

Why not put your occasionals up in the tipping challenge, if you are worried about others stealing the price, back early and post late.

At the moment you are in grave danger of appearing like Blair and Campbell far more concerned with presentation than content.

Can you direct me to a post of yours which could add to the insight I have gained into VDW from reading Gummys transcripts of his articles?
Alf

Alf

What one can gain from a post depends on what one has already understood, the issues one is working upon, one's preparedness to work to understand the post and, not to be under-estimated, one's level of capability. Depending on where you are in relation to those, you could find something of value in many of my posts.

As to the ambiance of the thread re selections, I suggest that you might read through some of the posts aimed at Guest when he started posting selections (I'm talking about March 2002 onwards, not the "80%" thread), and then consider the "tone" which the likes of Epiglotis, JIB, Jimmy, Johnd and Biotechnology have used in posts to me (not that you can consider the most offensive, as they've been deleted by Gummy).

Yes, I can look after myself, but I'll continue to share my thoughts about current races with those engaged in a shared learning activity, and not provide possible ammunition to the likes of the above-mentioned.

This sharing of views happens on an almost daily basis. As it happens, I didn't find a serious bet yesterday, but having studied the four grade B handicaps, posted the following elsewhere, well before the first race, as twenty or more posters here can confirm:

“I agree to an extent about Showpiece, whom I have as the c/f in the 1.35 MR, and seemingly a good bet, but I do find myself worrying a bit about the weight.

In the 3.40 MR I don't see Chicuelo as a form horse and make Brother Joe the c/f, but this is a considerable step up in chase class for him, so again I've some doubts.

Neither, therefore, serious bets for me, nor alas have I found anything attractive in either of the two big Flat handicaps.”

A little later, I elaborated the thinking on the two MR c/fs in an email to another member of this board, thus:

"Having looked at the 1.35 MR, I'm sure Showpiece is the c/f, and a worthy one, but find myself a little concerned about the weight. With 7lb less he'd be a big bet for me, but I have a suspicion one or more of the lower weighted may pick him up …

And the same in the 3.40, where I have Brother Joe as the c/f. Although, of course he's run well in some decent hurdles races, today is a big step up in class chase-wise, and lto his jumping wasn't perfect. My concern is that, if he comes under pressure today, as is likely, his jumping may again let him down …”

No winners there, of course, but the analysis bears re-reading in the light of the results, especially if you saw the races in question.

[This message was edited by Fulham on July 20, 2003 at 10:01 AM.]

Wasn't Alpha2's point; that the only person giving stick about losers is you, primarily on the 80% thread and aimed at Johnd?

Just to clarify the "stick" that is given on the 80% thread. I think John get's it because of the stick he gives out to those he says know nothing about VDW. Most of his selections bear no resemblance to a VDW type of selection, despite what he thinks and the results surely back this up.

I have asked John on the other thread, why he selected Binary File over the real class/form horse Mubtaker. I always go over races again, win or lose, to see if I made any factual mistakes or suchlike. With Texas Gold, I did make a mistake in bypassing the class/form horse Lochridge in the evaluation process. This was also noted by others who have a good understanding of how VDW established class and form. John D has had this approach explained to him on a basic level, but he dismisses it and the VDW c/fs continue to outperform his selection process, whatever it is.

So, in my view John wouldn't get the stick for selections if he didn't give it out. I am as certain as one can be that he does not establish class/form as VDW did and I am even more certain that Mubtaker would not have been overlooked by VDW yesterday let alone opposed with Binary File, a horse VDW wouldn't have had on his mind. I am interested to know why John did though?

Guest

I agree. And you may have noticed that I stopped commenting on Johnd's selections because it seemed cruel to do so, until he started having a go at me in no uncertain terms. If Johnd stops that, he'll never hear another word from me re his selections.

You're both either missing or avoiding the point. If Fulham does not himself offer selections he is not in a position to administer "stick" about anyone else's selections. This behaviour is akin to playing with loaded dice, I cant help recalling the ridiculous situation that developed in the "discussion" about the Boxing Day 6, which illustrated similar but more conspicuously unproductive behaviour from Fulham.

Guest, as Epiglotis has said, you seem to be missing the point. If you want to criticise anyone I would never dream of getting involved. After the way you have posted on the 80% thread you have, in my opinion, earned that right. Fulham on the other hand has not and I will defend anyone against criticism from fulham.

This thread has stagnated ever since Fulham saw fit to spirit away some of the more open contributors to another forum, for his own devious ends.
There is little worthwhile discussion of VDW; that is now done in private, which was the aim all along, while the architect of its downfall is allowed to posture and patronise amongst the few remaining faithful.
If this thread is to flourish again, steps must be taken to redress the balance. It is with this intention that I will open up discussion on the basis of their approach, the very thing Fulham has fought to keep to himself, even to the extremes of destroying the medium where much of it was imparted.
Their approach is not as misunderstood as he may think, members will draw their own conclusions as to its worth.

VDW wrote in 'Spells It All Out', " To confirm what the figures say, it is necessary to study the form of all concerned, taking particular note of the class in which they ran, the course they ran on,the pace and going of the respective races, distances won or beaten by, and most importantly, how they performed in the later stages of each race", and it is from this passage that they draw their missing link.
The 'most important' part is seen as a reference to how a horse performs from one race to the next, and is used to guage improvement, or otherwise. In short, that means that a horse performing better, in a better class race than previous, has shown improvement.
To verify this, they then look at the ability ratings of the horses in that race to guage the actual level of form . One presumes that they would then check the previous form of a higher rated horse, to ensure that it was in form.
Weight is also used as part of their calculations, so that, say, horse A, a/r 46, beats horse B, a/r 76, by 3l receiving 7lbs and horse B is in form, then the form is of some merit. This is then balanced against the horses' previous form to ascertain whether it is in form/improving. Thus the oft used term 'relative weight'.
One can glean from the above that is a fairly long, and often subjective process, which will often lead its followers to different selections by reading form in this way; and though there is merit in some of the approach, it is, as Boozer pointed out recently, some way away from the statement, "Once you find it, you will wonder how on earth you could miss it, and you will have the same selections as myself".

JOHND,
For what its worth my interpretation of 'the missing link' is the reading of form. I have previously said on other boards, and maybe this one,that the reading of form is paramount if you are ever going to arrive at a winner.
The main reason we don't all arrive at the same selection is because we all interpret form differently. I think this is what was meant by VDW in the quote you give in your post. If we all read form like he did we would all come up with the same horse. At the moment thats as far as I'm going for fear of boring everyone. Do you agree with this?
See you soon, Mike.

Can you see why guest thinks he has made a mistake by backing texas gold instead of Lochridge

Can you see (apart from the weight carried)
That Spirit leader was probably more likely to be a VDW bet when it won its last race of the season at cheltenham than when it won the time before?

Boozer

I made Lochridge the c/f, not Texas Gold, but did not regard either as strong enough to back.

As far as I am concerned, Spirit Leader was a decent VDW bet on both his winning runs, and to my mind, because of weight (which is integral to the assessment and can never be disregarded), if anything stronger on the first occasion.