"If the price is right" is a qualification. If it had got beat we would probably have read from you that as it was less than x/1 the price was too low.

Morning all,

I`m pleased I go to bed early.

The first thing I do every morning is have a quick read of the thread. I wake up this morning to see a full page of posting`s has arrived overnight. Brilliant, were my first thoughts, what else can I learn, etc.

What do I find, a full page of b----- augument, wind up,etc.

All i`ll is this.

SWISH - the many winners you put up on your thread are brilliant, so much so i`ll be reading the whole thread in the near future with interest. You clearly live for your racing therefore why not concentrate on what your good at and stop all this nonsense.
You should be proud of all the positive feedback,etc you regularly receive. Why risk losing that respect. Come on put all this nonsense behind you. Leave Guest to do what he`s good at and you carrying on giving winners and putting money in your `followers` pockets.

**** for me you are up there with all the others who I respect namely Guest, Fulham, Barney, Mtoto, Statajack,Lee, etc. Don`t lose those high standards.

GUEST - I`ve never met you and I never will, I haven`t taken the liberty to E mail you personally but maybe one day I will when I feel I know enough. What I will do is compliment you yet again on your educational posts and long may they continue.
One question, why waste your time trying to justify yourself to the `hecklers` ?

Good morning to all, I`m off for a run

Dear all
Why should anyone let any of us know what they are backing.I for one learn more about VDW from people who tell us after the fact why this horse won or that horse lost.
I don't know about you but i have lost money backing horses that someone has told me was a cert over the years so i now do the picking of horses myself,If i get it wrong then so be it but i know its my fault not anyone else's i enjoy looking through papers and finding a horse worth backing and if it wins i think BRILLIANT i beat the bookie with that one,So as far as i am concerned keep your winners to yourself and tell me about it afterwards as long as it is explained as to why it was backed in the first place.
I am enjoying being a member of this forum and hope to be so for a long time as its the only one that has got me to send postings,If in the future i am good enough to add something that i feel has been missed i will do so.

ps Its the first time i have ever been called a pipsqueak, just because it says junior member dont think im a little boy.Sorry it's a bit long winded my apology's to all.

mistletoe

firstly i did not back this horse,however when looking at the form it becomes apparent that it was a good thing.

if you go back to race 2390 it shows the true class of this horse, without it being put in the race so to speak.

nothing else from the numerical picture had enough class to trouble this.

well done guest on a superb selection and thanks for telling us about it i am sure that anyone that cares to study this horse will be impressed.

and how it won is a true reflection how clearcut it was in the book.

guest,

regarding an earlier post, I dont think vdw would have been to enamoured with the exchanges.

from what i gather he knew of the real problems that gambling caused and in a way he appeared to feel guilt about taking money from the gullible.

That was his whole point of the first letters wasn't it to try to give people a method to show a profit,any profit.

jimmy,

you are right about the form book aspect there is no better way.

the problem is knowing what to look at when you get one.

vdw is about how to interpret form and his examples clearly show aspects that should be considered as determining factors when making a final selection.

as has been said before its all there in black an white but i suspect many are digging the wrong field.

speed figures are rubbish and the sooner anyone get's to understand this the better.

guest,mtoto and others have proved,to me, that they can read the form book inside out and back to front.

i am starting to understand and i know it,invester is starting to understand and he knows it,determind understands but doesn't know it YET,

I APPERCIATE ALL THE HELP THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN TO ME BY MANY OF THE PEOPLE ON THIS BOARD

and i in my own way will try to give something back (WHEN TIME PERMITS)

determind when you were out running this morning what are the main factors that affect how fast you can run?? would a 10k road runner beat a 10 k fell runner?? i am sure that you have a favourite distance with a speed at which you cant improve on, when conditions are right, but in many cases if you take a different route each day and over different terrain then things will will not turn out to be the same.doesn't mean your any worse a runner though does it???

i am thinking of going running with wellies on and carrying two bags of shoping to improve my stamina and after 6 months of this surely i will be a better faster runner.

enough waffle!

i think the problem is this,
it is not jealousy its disbelief.
ill take a few examples of how i see it.
there are not many people on here that know anybody else,max said he was a pro punter and i thought,yes right porky pie,but he said this and is going a long way towards proving this so i think he might well be.
a bloke wrote the other day he made 10000+ last year(ruffy i think)now until he proves it i for one will not believe.
if swish had not posted his selections up he would have the same grief as guest,100% profit on certs but he has proved himself in every way possible,guest has 80% winners?,what i am getting at is unless anybody proves themselves after posting up figures,disbelief and grief they will get.
guest its not anything personal its just your postings,if a newcomer posted he had 80% winners and did not prove it he would also have a lot of stick.

My theory is the hecklers hope to goad a certain person in to giving even more away than he has already done. I would be surprised if it happened.
Then again it seems to be working with Barney.

Barney

I'm not a great user of speed figures, but as one component they have their uses, as VDW himself was clear.

In his 10 October 1981 article, he wrote:

"... the use of time can appear to have many disadvantages ... [and] what the clock says at the end of a race may not appear to tell the whole story, but it gives enough when interpreted and used to best advantage to provide one of the most useful means of evaluation."

He went on to qualify this as follows:

"There are good grounds for taking the view that when using time as a means of evaluation, attention should be restricted to the five and six furlong sprints, or at least to a maximum of one mile ..."

Though VDW was perhaps not consistent here (or changed his mind with experience) as Chapter 6 of "Systematic Betting", written some years later, suggests that he used sfs as one means of judging that Roushayd was in peak form for the Old Newton Cup.

One issue on which I very much agree with VDW also comes from the 10 October 1981 article, where he wrote:

"Time can highlight an outstanding horse when it puts in a first-class performance, but it does not work in reverse. Poor time figures do not automatically show a horse to be lacking in merit, all they show is that to date the animal has not provided evidence to that effect."

Barney/Determined - You are absolutely correct that VDW detested slanging matches. So do I really, but as todays form of communication is a lot faster than writing a letter to RFU, I saw little harm in engaging Jimmy,etc on the level they wanted to play at. It is not going to be on going though.

I am glad you have looked at the form of Mistletoe and spotted her positives. I feel sure Mr Henderson himself knew who was more likely to prevail. The point about looking at examples is learning why and how things happen in such a way within racing. Those who want to look should find information of real value, those who don't want to look should say fair enough it's not for me and carry on their merry way. The banter with Jimmy was pointless really. For a long time I refused to post pre race analysis, for lot's of reasons, but recently I relented. I pinpointed those to avoid or those that had doubts, but named 3 selections. Nothing unusual though and just moderate prices those days, but the response from the hecklers was as expected really, along the lines of being lucky. I was also accused of recruiting followers, for what purpose I don't know. If I was out to con people. don't they think I would have done it by now?

At least Swish does post his ideas, but it is pointless to try and find the winner of virtually every race run. I have only included him in recent debate because he seems to think he knows how to use the methods as laid down and I don't. He is wrong and until he can indicate otherwise there is no more to say. There are many ways to beat the book, but no one knows everything. I have striven to learn the ways VDW was showing us and success tells me I have understood the vast majority of what was there to be found. It also tells me when someone else knows the methods or not. There are a few on the thread who do know much more than the most about VDWs techniques, Swish is not one of them. He finds himself winners though and good luck to him, but on what scale is he operating ? I have a feeling some of the amounts wagered recently would cause him alarm.

Michael and Barney have the right attitude. VDW gave his views and we could take it or leave it. He did it he said, because he saw so many throwing money away and usually getting into serious problems for it. Nothing has changed in racing and everyday tons of money is literally flushed down the toilet by the hoards of habitual punters in this country. A tiny minority actually strive to make some real sense of the form, and very few actually do so for any significant period of time.
I have one or two acquaintances who more or less know how I bring home the bacon, so to speak. Even if I tell them what I am backing when asked, they don't always follow suit or if they do, they then fritter it away on the favourite in the very next novice hurdle or 2yo maiden race. This is because they enjoy the thrill of finding so called easy money and being proved correct in their own asessments but do it in an unplanned, haphazard way. I enjoy the same thrills, but I made damn sure I had planned my route and understood as much as I could about form and class and how they come together. I can sincerely thank VDW for that, because he signposted the way albeit in a cleverly disguised manner.

Have a good Sunday afternoon all.

HI FULHAM,

thanks for that run down i tend to agree but i think he introduced sf because he was struggling to get the message across.Some things never change?

are you still using your hotmail address??

Barney

Yes, I've just replied - was too depressed after the football yesterday to open my emails!

Speed figures are rubbish.

Barney.

I feel I should try and answer this before Swish does, Swish knows the basics of how I work. I am sorry, but I can't let a statement like that go unchallenged. VDW said speed without form is useless, I agree. When the speed figure is backed up with class it is a very strong weapon. My strategy is based on this, and I am still not convinced the consistency method is not based on it. I am not saying for one moment just having the fastest speed figure is the key, far from it.

I don't think anyone could call me one of Guest's followers, but I must say I am disappointed at the amount of abuse he is taking. Guest has gone much further in explaining vdw than many of the so called experts. I have no intention of explaining all my thoughts on vdw in an open forum, and don't see any reason why he should. The answer is simple, if you don't believe or want to learn about vdw don't look at the thread. There are plenty of other threads to suit all tastes. I can't see we are doing anyone any harm, except possibly taking some of the attention away from those who think winning is easy.

All this seems to have started from one silly remark about Swish. I was going to reply to this, but some of you beat me to it. Swish started this thread, I would like to think with a little prompting from me. It has turned out to be the best thread on the net, we need people like Guest, and the others, that have spent years trying to solve the vdw puzzle. Don't drive them away with silly remarks and abuse, we will all suffer. That would include Gummy as this thread must have brought many to his site.

Hope this can be the end of this unfortunate episode.

Regards

Please don't go Guest or any of the brown nosers,it's all such fun seeing you run around in circles picking favourites that we never hear the last of.
Well done,it's a wonder you ever get a chance to put a bet on,probably half of you are sad cybertwats who wouldn't know the inside of a betting shop if it fell on you.
Carry on waffling.
Q.

Hello All,

I've only just stolen a minute and am trying to catch up on the thread. I have at this point 11 pages to read, so I think it will take some time. Please bear with me if I bring up topics that my be "old news".

Oldtimer - I record the top 4 Ability ratings and also the top 4 highest wins and have noticed that usually they are the same and on the occasions they are not there will be three in common. The main difference is that the rankings are different.
I think using the top 4 highest wins is a pretty safe approximation if you can't get the top 4 ability horses.

All the best
hedgehog

Guest,
Cant seem to find your email address.
Regards,

Hedgehog,

Thanks for confirming what I have come to use - the highest value races won. That's the nearest approximation I can come to in finding the highest class horses.

Mtoto

Rereading your contributions I notice that you don't use adjusted speed figures. I'm in agreement but go a step further by calculating the actual speed figure obtained in a past race (not the one adjusted to 12st [10st flat]) and note the weight carried and OR. I find it gives me some idea of the sort of weight the animal runs best at.

Max and others

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is better to back two in a race rather than one each way. Maybe leopards can change their spots!

It's a long hard process but slowly things are becoming a little clearer, for which I must thank all those who have posted clues to be interpreted.

That still doesn't mean that I rely entirely on VDW to find winners - I'm far from being in that class yet, but it does give another interesting insight to my persuals. With the Flat coming up I'm also going to try and work in breeding, trainer and jockey factors - at least for the early weeks.

Many thanks for all the interesting reading.

Oldtimer

Full time job this thread,

I`ve been away for approx` 5-6 hours and the thread`s gone mad again. There have been that many posts over past 2 weeks I`m struggling to keep on top of them all. I want to reply to so many posts its just finding the time. If anybody out there feels I`m ignoring them then apologies as that isn`t the case at all.

Barney

You are the second person this week to suggest I`m getting there so why don`t I feel the same ? I would in the not too distant future like to discuss your comments to me of earlier today when I have given them more thought. Would that be OK with you and if so I`ll let you have my E mail address.

Mistletoe

I`ll be giving this horse a lot of attention this afternoon.

Winners galore

Looking back over the thread over past 10 days those fully experienced with VDW should and I`m sure they have won a packet. Good luck to them.

Systematic Betting by VDW

I do not have a copy of this book and I know it is out of print. Question – do I need to read this book or are the contents covered in all the other literature, ie – Golden Years and Ultimate Wheil of Fortune.

Regards,

hello there..the last thing i wanted to do when i made that silly comment,was to upset the thread iv,e worked hard over the last five months, and had no intention of jeopardizing a brilliant thread,like this we all say things in the heat of the moment.i now realise i dropped a big one and for that i,m truly sorry cheers investor

Determined
Systematic Betting is not out of print anymore.
I bought one 2 weeks ago from Browzers.Its worth
getting to read the comments about Desert Orchid
if nothing else.


Maggsy