Unsuitable ground, (softish) I beleve he likes it when he can hear his hoofs rattle.

I wonder if they can find something for him whilst hes still in such good condition.

Jib
As you note, Tillerman's withdrawal yesterday indicates that his trainer considers him at his peak and was unwilling to risk him in unfavourable circumstances.
Quite often trainers will run their horses on changing ground when the run is academic, it is those that don't run that are often worth noting.
Not so sure about your invite to Guest & Fulham though; apart from the scorn they brought upon this thread in the past, there is always the risk that they will use it to top up their ailing membership.

Mtoto
Re Salselon, the consistency is arguable, the improvement isn't.
Lto to finish a closing 3rd, despite a 'round the houses' run, on 2 of the better gp1 winners seen out this season was his best ever form, and the best form in the race.
If your speed figures tell you different, you should burn them.

Not only do trainers take horses out because of bad ground, Michael Bell took Key Secret out of a race on Friday night because he stated his horse had no chance from the draw, (Chester) he was fined £365, then he entered it in the first race at York yesterday, the horse won the race and Bell picked up a cool £8,697

ManD,

Well done if you followed it! That is the sort of thing I love!

Armen

But that dosent explain the large group of Irish priest that gather on the Cheltenham festival every year, and they never fail to back a winner or two.

You can hear the words of Big Mac, those men of the cloth, "They Knew"

Jib
I agree, this thread has progressed recently, not least because we get very few posts like yesterdays, where a member refuses to join in the pre-race discussion, then takes cheap shots afterwards. We are better off without them.
I also agree that the only way anyone can show that they truly understand VDW is to post before the race. When they can regularly achieve a 80/90% sr, and at the prices he indicated, then they will be believed.
In the meantime, all the backfitting in the world will only serve to prove a skill at aftertiming.

johnd -

are going to allow them to "Dutch" ???



If they cold achieve 80/90% even by Dutching then I would be Amazed !!!

Please help me!
I have seen this on various threads. What is going 'Dutch' or 'Dutching' I am afraid I have not got a clue. Well except that you pay for yourself when you are on a date, but judging the animosity some of you have for each other I think this unlikely! LOL
Is it laying???

Snow Knight - try this Link !!

http://www.bettingboots.org/dutching_calculator.htm

JIB,

I have just spent an hour going through some of the old postings. Quite how you can say the thread has progressed recently I can see. On read these posting many and various questions were asked and answered. There was a fair amount of talk about recent races before and after the advent. Many posts went into detail on how they thought VDW worked. It was also interesting to see the one case of blatant after timing was jumped on straight away. Just as interesting was the way this was achieved, some asked politely how the result was a VDW selection. Others were more than a little abusive.

I think it a great pity that some of the more knowledgeable contributors to this thread have disappeared. There are some very good posts on here, unfortunately the thread is punctuated by stupid senseless/useless posts. I can see there are a few more posts since the thread has been open to all. Progression, I can't really see it.

Johnd,

I think your answer to me 'burn them' says a lot about you. If you don't agree with something it MUST be wrong, get rid of it. Not sure if the cheap shot remark was aimed at me. If it was, how/why was it a cheap shot? You say it is arguable that your selection wasn't consistent, arguable to who? Not VDW he spent hours working out the chances of horse based on their form figures, what % chance did he give a horse with the figures 923? If you want to back horses at are likely to throw in a bad race (at short prices) that's up to you. Please don't do it in the name of VDW, I'm sure he wouldn't. Improving, not the way VDW showed us. Ok the form looked better than the race before. Why do you think he told us to use s/f to confirm that it was? The s/f said it was 4 lengths weaker. As for burning the s/f, burn the figures that gave the winner of the Champion Hurdle, Scottish Grand National, Irish Derby, Eclipse, the winner of the big handicaps for the last 2 Saturdays, and many more? Ok just to please you, you must be right!!

Be Lucky

Jib

If I may quote you
"Unfortunately for them all, not one priest can climb into his pulpit on Sunday morning and in the name of God give his congregation a winning Heinz for Monday afternoon.
If he could, he would establish his authority over the other denominations who would abandon their vain temples and flock to such a fount of wisdom."

Did not the priest say "Since the opening of the flat I have placed 32 bets of which 29 won."
And his disciple say "My best day produced a nice Yankee, with Buckskin (2-1), Swiss Maid (5-1), My Therape (5-1) and Cambridgeshire winner Baronet (12-1)."

Hence us all flocking to this fount of wisdom.

TC

Thanks for the link it is really useful. I did know of the method but not of its nickname. I used to try and work it out manually-and I was not very good.
Thanks, this is a useful little calculator.
I have read a lot of useful comments and received help and I have only used the site for a few days. Thanks everyone!

Garston

yes

But all after the event again

This thread is called "VDW (continued)". It is on a section of the board called "Van Der Wheil". People who post on this particular thread must presumably have an interest in the writings of Mr. Van Der Wheil then, yes?

I do not understand why there is so much animosity between contributors. If one person writes something that another doesn't agree with, it doesn't necessarily make him/her right or wrong. And neither does it make the other party right or wrong. It is just a different viewpoint. And both parties can put their differing viewpoints hopefully with the ultimate aim of a furtherance of understanding on the subject in hand.

Whether we believe that an 80% strike rate is possible or not is neither here nor there IMO. The point is that these writings offer us all the opportunity to improve the way we read the RP form section.

Perhaps Mr. Van Der Wheil did get that strike rate. He'd been at it for 40+ years. And he knew more than he's let on in these little letters of his too I'm sure. The point is that this methodology offers us the BEST way of improving our strike rate IMO. No one has offered me a better alternative.

Hence I am writing this to ask contributors to consider their motivation for visiting this thread. It is my belief that the motivation needed is a desire to improve our selection process and betting profitability as a direct consequence of these writings.

Now, I also realise from reading some of the previous historical posts that the man has earned a cult-like status and hence other board members are wary of, (or amused by), the almost religious regard that the writer is held in. And I get the impression from Mr. Peach’s description that he himself would not be at all comfortable with that evaluation. Mr. Van Der Wheil was a man, not a god. In his letters he admitted he didn't know everything. In fact, that seems to be his motivation for writing: that he was still willing to learn more. But those very letters show us that he did know so much more than most gamblers. I want to learn more. Whether you or I attain an 80% strike rate - who knows. But I do know that using just some of the things he's taught have put my personal strike rate far above that which I could have achieved without his help. And I see dangers in races that I would not have considered before. For this I am grateful.

I would like to understand more. But I feel that this thread has the potential to be so much more useful. I would like to suggest to Gummy that the thread should be moderated to ensure that war doesn't break out (as seems to be the history of the thread) and that discussions concentrate on the subject matter. As a suggestion, how about a yellow/red card thing for contributors who deliver personal insults?

But that is my opinion. You may have a different view!

BlackCat

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BlackCat,

I am only a new visitor, but I have read plenty of previous postings.
I agree with BC on most of his comments. A little light hearted banter never hurt anyone or a battle of wits, but there should be no resort to foul insulting language.
I have just been reading odd pages of the 80% challenge from last year and i found it very interesting. I looked at the last page and saw that Pipedreamer had 4/4. Well done that man!
So I am asking for a favour again. Does anyone have a record of the four selections he made? This will save me ploughing through every page. I believe that the class/form system should have a limited number of selections and that VDW used a selection of strategies. Using Pipedreamers selections for the 80 % challenge the number over the year would seem about right to me.
Remember I am new to the board please forgive and be gentle if I have made any glaring errors!!!!

Newmembers,

bear in mind that this is the "acceptable" face of this thread. The personal abuse and attacks often extended to three or four pages in length, which "gummy", to be fair to him, edited out on numerous occasions, at times though he could not cope with the onslaught, hence the upping sticks.

Mtoto
I have nothing against speed figures per se, what I do object to is twats who post there pre-race thoughts elsewhere and then regale us with their after the race wisdom.
This thread has seen far too much of that, is moving away from it, and you are not helping.

A few VDW points from Salselons last run:

1/ His lto run was in the highest class, gp1, cl 1450

2/ In that race he was beaten less than 1l by 2 proven gp1 performers, with a host of good class horses behind him.

3/ In that race, he was boxed in, had to be switched around the field, and had finished well, hardly the sign of an out of form horse.

4/ Subsequent to that race, the 2 that finished in front of him had both gone on to win furter gp1's, and a horse well back had gone on to win a gp3.

5/ In yesterday's race, he was dropped to a gp3 over the same course, yet had only to give 3lbs away to mostly modest horses.

Of course, we all had the choice to ignore all the above and just note his s/f, (And disregard the RP's, which showed an improvement of 12 lbs), but it could hardly be called VDW.
Whatever caused his defeat yesterday, I very much doubt it was his s/f; still, as long as you are happy.



Incidentally, this thread, which you regard as regressive but still continue to read and post on, is only available to you because Gummy chose to open it up; a move I recall you and your co-conspirators bitterly opposed.
Keep smiling!