they all laughed when i put that on at 6/1.

I bet it looks good to some now

Thank you Walter, at the time I was in Italy and I didnt see this, and I agree, besides being enjoyable it is food for thought.

As the members of the VDW(C) thread are reluctant to answer questions and the VDW(a) thread has been declared by in-house expert Guest to have nothing to do with VDW, I wonder if this is the thread for VDW related questions.

Yes, I think I've noticed that tendency myself. Can you imagine being Guest? Having a self-image sustained by pretence of literary knowledge displayed anonimously on the internet? Weirdness knows no bounds.

VDW made frequent reference to speed ratings -

esp when talking about -"improvement in a higher class " which I feel is V important to his writings.

I can go along with this , but can`t currently find a set of speed rating that I would want to use !

I think "TOPSPEED" is an absolute load of "B*llo*cs"

Do any of the VDW exponents follow this line
and if so, - which ratings would they recomend ?


Tc



I have in the past "graphed" a combination of TOPSPEED and POSTMARK ratings, projecting them forword, - and seen some very interesting conclusions !

but this has fallen appart latl`y -

I believe the compiler has recently changed ?

[This message was edited by Tuppenycat on January 15, 2003 at 08:28 PM.]

TC,

If I used anyone's s/f it would be Split Second in the RFU, they can also be found on line at https://secure.raceform.co.uk/. They don't suit everyone as they are formulated without weight. I find they are accurate, and I use them as a check against mine.

The Top Speed guy is very knowledgeable. The standard times he uses are a little to fast for my liking, that's why is figures are so low. He often has races with no recorded s/f, but when he does come up with a good figure it is worth noting. As with all s/f the class the figure was achieved in is as important as the figure it's self.

Be Lucky

Just reading your old letter there I would like to explain why it is not possible to get 80% strike rate in hcps backing only one horse in the race (and probably not even backing 2).
From what i have read on the VDW thread over the past year, the ability ratings etc are virtually always going to force you into choosing from the low end of the betting. You are never going to trap the 16-1's 33-1's etc.
Straight away that means you cannot pick 14% of the winners.
From the remaining 86% you are left with virtually no margin for error.
Here are several realistic occurrences that can stop your horse winning.
1. It falls
2, It is brought down, unseats or slips up or runs out
3. The going is incorrectly quoted in the racing press or, indeed, sometimes by the clerk of the course.
4. The going changes anyway due to sudden fluctuations in the English weather.
5. The jockey rides a bad tactical race.
6. The trainer tells the jockey the wrong advice.
7. Either of the above do not wish the horse to win that day for reasons that may suit them.
8. A fence or fences may be dolled off allowing weaker jumpers to recover any disadvantage.
9. The yard is suffering from a virus that is yet to reveal itself.
10. The horse may just not feel like it.
11. it may refuse to race.
12, It may be disqualified either correctly or incorrectly in the stewards room.
13. The booked jockey may be held up in traffic or got injured in the previous race thus forcing a rapid replacement with a jockey who doesn't know the horse.
14. Other horses in the race may produce unexpected upturn in form or not run to tactics expected.
15. An expected pacemaker or front runner may be suddenly be withdrawn from the race.
16. Your horse may run off before the race and use up too much energy.
17.If flat it may be injured in the stalls or indeed that stall may open later than the rest.
18. If your horse is called DEVON LOCH it may jump an imaginary fence and sprawl on the floor just when it had the race in the bag.
19.Someone in whose interest is for the horse not to win may have decided to dope it or innoccently feed it a Mars bar.
20.The jockey may forget to weigh in.
21.The judge may call the wrong horse in the photo.
22.Other jockeys may (and have) form a wall of horses to block yours off.
23. The stalls may not be as advertised in the press, or indeed changed in the middle of the meeting for a variety of reasons.
24. Emily Pankhurst or someone similar may suddenly throw herself in front of your horse.
25.The saddle slips
26. Another jockey accidentaly or otherwise hits the jockey or the mount in the face.
27.The jockey forgets how far the race is and drops his hands at the winning line forgetting he has a circuit to go.
28, The jockey drops his hands anyway thinking the race is run and gets pipped at the post.
29.The actual horse you think you are betting on is not that horse atall but in fact a ringer called FLOCKTON GREY or some similar name.
30, And last of all, dare i say it you may just have chosen the wrong horse,

Hope you have a sense of humour Fulham,
Cheers
swish

Swish

I don't have any problem with your list of 30, and indeed I think I could add one that actually happened to a horse I backed - it dropped dead (sorry if I missed that in yours).

No, the problem is your first assumption, that we are only dealing with a pool of 86% of potential winners. (And the same reasoning applies in respect of comments on the lines that, as only about 70% of races are won by "form" horses, and VDW backed only "form" horses, how could he have 80+% winners?)

While a good many of the incidents you list cannot be guaranteed not to happen, and thus 100% strike rate is palpably an unlikely outcome:

1) by careful race selection one can, and in practice I believe does, bet in a sub-set of all races with a higher than the "all races" percentage of races won by "form" horses, ie one does not back in poor races full of poor horses where the difference between being "in form" or not may be relatively marginal. (The 1.20 Newcastle yesterday was an example of such a race);

2) by confining one's attention to appropriate races one hopefully reduces the chances of some of the incidents you describe (ie less chance of non-triers);

3) by confining one's bets to races where there is a strong VDW selection (the man himself said he backed only about 20% of the horses he thought probable winners) one again - if one has good judgement - raises the potential strike rate;

4) VDW was not confined to the price band you specified - and nor are we.

All that said, I think Guest has said that his strike rate is in the high 60%s, and no-one else (as far as I know) claims anything like 80% So the available evidence suggests it is far from easy!

But there again, take Shane Warne and Tiger Woods. The best evers in their fields? If not, very close to being, and certainly the best by miles in the last twenty years. If, occasionally, one gets a truly exceptional talent in other fields, which even other "pros" in those fields can't get near to matching, why not in winner-finding?

As far as I am concerned, the 80% strike rate is merely an indication of what the very best may be able to achieve, and the fact that I almost certainly never will achieve it is neither here nor there. The golf course where I am a member has a par of 71. I don't suppose I'll ever beat 80, but that doesn't make me doubt that others can (which, of course, they do every week). But there again, none of our "scratch" players has yet got round in 64, the course record, set thirty years ago by one Tony Jacklin.

Thanks - I value you opinion !

When I Graph,- I graph over time, and plot the race value beneath the Time figure for each Race.

When the two lines (projected) diverge violently,
then pay attention !

Tc

Stay Lucky

That's an interesting idea. Presumably you have to construct an individual graph for each runner, there are two possible directions of divergence with all the intermediate degrees, how satisfactory is this process for comparitively rating the whole field?

If there is one thing I cannot fault you on, it is your immovable faith in your beliefs. Also your determination in your quest appears unquestionable.

I also feel certain I can do far better than I do, (although I do ok).

You would not believe the amount of hard work I put in, both on analysis of past results and races to come.

I personally think 80% is impossible at odds against even in non-hcps although I constantly strive (like yourself) to get a little nearer to it.

May i ask you how long you have been striving for that aim and how near you are to it?

Does your strive for near perfection allow you to have one bet a day, one bet a week, one bet a month?

I once asked Guest the same question (perhaps a few times actually) and he just answered me by saying I was trying to discover his income and similar evasive answers.

How the hell can you trap big outsiders with consistency ratings, and how come there has always been a great deal of talk on the thread about looking to the first 6 in the betting , yet you say different.

The whole thing is nothing but a mass of contradictions.

After over a year, now, all I have found is that any question or fact that throws doubt on these contradictions is just evaded or avoided.

What really puzzles me big time is that doubters and critics come on here very often yet you have no desire to prove them wrong.

So one of 2 things is happening.

Either you are not picking the winners atall and wish to hide the fact.

OR You are happy to keep picking winners and making money and get enjoyment from watching some of the others go round in circles, not knowing what you know.

What's it all abut Alfie?

Cheers
Swish
p.s have you ever got pissed?

A very note worthy point you raise there Swish

regarding most races "The whole thing is nothing but a mass of contradictions"

if you ignore these races, there are usually at least one or two others, a week, where this is not the case, sometimes one or two a day.

like I said though, nowt do wi' me. Sorry.

No - you can get what you want on the one graph -

I only graph the first 5 in the betting forcast, and I use a different colour pen for each runner, overlaying the lines !

A "Good Thing" tends to jump off the page at you.

A load of meaningless swiggles simply re-enforces the fact that the race is too close to call !

I find that a visual representation of the numbers does help me.

Regards

Tc

Thanks for the explanation. It's a while since I've tried playing around with graphs, I think I'll try some ideas from that angle.

Swish

I'm sorry to say that I'm old enough to have read the VDW letters as they appeared, and I tried to make something of them at the time, with only very modest success. Then the demands of family and work precluded giving any serious time to racing for some years.

I came back to VDW about seven years ago, and for five years applied what I now see to be a very limited understanding, much "informed" by Jock Bingham's writings, moderately successfully. Betting almost exclusively on the Flat, (because over the last ten years my scheduled professional work has been mainly in what we now learn to call the first semester - Autumn term to the likes of us), I found between 20 and 30 bets a season, with a strike rate always in the 40%s.

It is only in the last two years, during which I've re-purchased the old Form Books - my originals having long gone - and dug rather deeper, that I've found it possible to find many more betting opportunities. In the last month of the last Flat season, for example, I had 20 bets, nearly as many as during the whole of some recent Flat seasons.

Since the end of the Flat, I've only had about half a dozen VDW bets, and only one this year. But obviously the weather has impacted greatly on that.

I simply don't know how many VDW bets I'm likely to have over a full Flat season now, but I'll be surprised if it averages even half a dozen a week, as I'm not very interested in backing the very short priced VDW selections. A strike rate in the 50%s would represent improvement and I hope that will prove realistic. Time will tell.

I last got drunk prior to a party my wife and I gave in 1974. Me being in no state to greet our guests went down badly with my wife and resulted in the Great Warning Off of that year, something I've heeded ever since.

Does anyone know how Postdata rates ability and/or recent form?

Epi

Who's Postdata, does he contribute to this thread or what?

Postdata is a tipster or collection of tipsters working for the Racing Post.

Generally.
I would like to pose a question. There exists some controversy about whether or not VDW actually existed. If this thread can hope to define it's aims I believe that we have to assume that he did exist. I dont know if it has been directly stated but I think the belief is that he made a lot of money over a long period by very successful betting. There are two possibilities, either he made a few bets at very large stakes or he made a lot of bets at smaller stakes. If the former were the case his identity would be known, we can therefore conclude that VDW made a lot of bets. Why is it that the VDW thread has confidence in so few selections?

Mr e d,

I think Epi means Postmark. Anyway you are to be congratulated on another stimulating post. Hope they continue while you think of some answers to my questions. In case you have forgotten why did VDW make Soaf a bet? up in weight, distance, and class. Isn't this against all you think he taught?

Epi,

Sorry I don't use Postmark, so I can't answer your question. I did trawl through the RP site, and the best I can suggest is they are 3 private handicappers working in the conventional way.

Be Lucky