quote:

Originally posted by Mtoto:
P&B,


The thing I want to ask you about is the ability rating, why do you think it is a good guide to class? SD wins a £75,000 race to the winner, his ranking goes up in line with this. Take A Bow is 2nd beaten a neck, and his rating stays the same, where's the logic in that? Be Lucky

Mtoto, maybe VDW gave a clue in his letter of May 29, 1980 ' A Method Not Rules Needed '

In the penultimate paragraph he says....

" With minor modifications the method of rating can be applied to Flat racing.... This method does not evaluate the ability of any horse that has not won, BUT THERE ARE WAYS OF DOING SO WHICH SHOULD BE USED IN CONJUNCTION. "

Perhaps your way of doing things is what he was hinting at.

?

Gummy
The 6.50W is a poor standard of listed race, and not one that I gave more than a glance to, but your fancy Penetecost is a better horse off a strong pace, which seems unlikely tonight.
It may not stop him winning, but it would certainly stop me risking a bet.

Mrs Wellington

Stoute must have trained hundreds of horses better than the opposition, he placed his horse to win!

Mtoto
on the other forum on saturday i gave a list of horses to which your boy gave comments.In one of them he said he did not consider Kew green a consistent form horse,Did you share this view.

Piston broke (i don't think you are)
I totally agree with your coments r.e the ability rating and it has been mentioned many times that it is part of the equation and was/is used in seperating horses.It is this particular factor that eludes so many and restricts them from moving forward with the methods or ultimately giving up.you say you don't agree with aftertiming and i can fully understand why it pisses so many off.But if folk actually take time out to look at the horses the factors are evident wether it be pre or post race.This is one of the ways i learnt and i can't understand why people don't look a little harder and try to understand the thought process behind the selections be they pre or post race.

Not long back from Wolver ( where I did badly), and, I have to say, I found today's posts very enjoyable and thought provoking.

A very fair analysis from PB; some very searching questions from Mtoto; good points about Trainer Intent from JIB and johnd, and fair comment from Imp, Ectoo and Investor.

Thank you all very much!

Btw, I also backed what turned out to be Gummie's losing selection: Pentacost. No time today to do any VDW stuff, so I must have considered other factors last night.

Anyway, what I've learnt is that I need to look a lot more at Trainer Intent, as this is a very weak area of my game, at present.

Ability rating didnt sort out todays race did it

IMP I have always thought that if the Abilty rating was of any use it would be more likey over the sticks

Sean
It is a bonus to have the trainer on your side
Trouble is he doesnt always know , and as I have said before
Who thinks only one trainer is targeting these high value races.

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

JIB,

I didn't say there was anything wrong with looking at the best race of the day. The trouble is when the race has been looked the need to back in that race. Rather than waste the time and effort the bet is made. Even if Pentecost had won how would he have been a VDW type selection, was he consistent, was he improving? For me the answer can only be no. I can see no problem with backing SD place only, I often back this way myself.

Imp,

I don't think that is what VDW was hinting at, but can one ever be sure?

Investor,

Danny was working off my database, so I would think that was the reason he said Kew Green was consistent but not a form horse. VDW said 'Class needs to be related to performance' If a horse isn't rated high enough to get onto my database it is only because the performance wasn't good enough. There are many horses in it that still wouldn't be rated good enough to win that race. He is inexperienced, and said what he thought was right, do I agree, not completely. When I analysed that race, I looked at the top rated SD, and then had a look at KG the only horse I could see as a danger. I decided that on balance neither where worth the risk. At times VDW did seem to take the best of a bad bunch, I can follow that logic, but it's not for me. So although it wasn't a bet for me I can see and accept the logic of anyone who made it a VDW selection. I couldn't find a bet on saturday.

Be Lucky

Boozer
The ability rating desn't work on many occasions if it is taken at face value,Like i have said vdw used it in a clever but logical way which is borne through many of the selections i have looked.it is also this part that many miss but need to find.

But this one was the bottom rated on ability Investor
I can see why it hasnt worked in this case

Boozer
That i irrespective,What you have to ask yourself is would vdw have seen it has a good thing,Remember he only backed 20% of horses he thought would win.

mtoto
you say you didn't find anything on saturday.i would like to think that this was due to your price stipulation and not because there was anything worthy of support.If it's the latter that is of course your prerogative,If it's the former then i have to disagree there were bets to be had on saturday or shall we say there were horses that fitted the criteria.

quote:

i would like to think that this was due to your price stipulation and not because there was anything worthy of support.

Investor,

For me the price is a very important part of betting. If they don't meet this requirement they are not worthy of support. If they win and the price isn't right it doesn't matter to me, I just wait. Backing horses is about profit, anything else is about ego. You can't spend ego!!

Be Lucky

Mtoto
profit is also important to me but value differs from one person to another.And ego never enters the equation

"profit is also important to me but value differs from one person to another.And ego never enters the equation"

Investor,

What hypocritical rubbish you spout!

Your byzantine contorsions between selections and bets, besides being hilarious, are a perfect example of someone obsessed with their ego.

Jib
it isn't about ego all i am trying to do is be helpful if that is strange for you to accept then that is your problem and so is vdw.You can't accept that there is something in these methods and again that is only down to your failure in going that one step further,You once told me that you were too long in the tooth to bother (when i offered the form books).That was of course your decision.But some have gone that one step further and have tried to help but unfortunately it has fell on deaf hears,Yours being the deafest of them all.

Those were good points made by Boozer!
Unfortunately, the questions raised throw us right back to square one.
Perhaps, though nothing is infallible, including VDW, AR, or whatever.

My doubts are worsened by Investor's statement that the "Ability Rating" is not to be taken at face value, but works in a logical way that was used by VDW.

So, that's me completely bollixed again!

I think, however, that I may have gleaned a useful idea from Mtoto who mentioned his data -base.
Only horses that have reached a certain standard ( passed certain tests, I guess) are on this list.
That would be a good thing for me to have, I feel, for quite often I back things that I don't really know much about at all.

It may or may not be VDW, but I think a " Hot list" would save me a lot of stupid, wasteful bets.

Similarly, with the trainer thing; as Boozer says, we can never really know about the motives of every one of them, so, perhaps again, a list of ones who've been good to us in previous bets would be helpful.

quote:

i have said vdw used it in a clever but logical way

but it was easy for him..he used it after they had won.

I'm sorry but this REALLY is the crux of everything. The main reason that VDWers struggle is because they have to do it before the race..thats been done loads and because it hasn't come together they have now turned in to mainly doing what he did..reading races afterwards trying to fit winners to rules.

Unfortunately as well VDW HAS spawned SOME people that are arrogant and WILL NOT accept any other way than to what they have been brainwashed in to...rules created after the fact.

Unfortunately this board has attracted some of these arrogants as can be seen by the sneering, I know something you don't know, people here..JohnD is a classic example..he knows it all and also carries on biases against me he has had from other boards from what i can gather. It's all a bit sad..because without dolts like him WE could move forward..with his input and a couple of others you will always end up with the same type of post race cockiness based on a complete inabilty to EVER post pre race any DEFINITE selections.

Ectoo,

The stage is all yours, move us on. However as this is the VDW thread it would be handy if at least some of the ideas are VDW based. This shouldn't be hard as you say ALL his ideas are stolen from other people. Can ALL these other folk be wrong and all their ideas useless?

You have spent weeks trying to show (unsuccessfully) that consistent horses don't win. When they do the prices are useless, or so you say. I think after your very unsuccessful foray in this department a very good place to start is with the consistent horses as VDW suggests. What would you suggest as a guide to ability, is a guide needed or do we all just rely on intuition? What do you think about the rest of the formula, capability + probability + hard work. are these also a waste of time? When ever you have raised a question I have tried to answer it, and show where VDW mentioned these points. What have you done apart from sound off, not a lot?

Your beef about VDW is that it is all based on past performances ignoring the fact that the later examples could be solved by using the early examples. You then suggest trainer and jockey stats, and sire stats. What the devil are they based on if not past performances?

The stage is yours

Be Lucky

i haven't crabbed past performance ..i have crabbed trying to make rules using horses from 30 years ago though

i'll be very happy to post on Gummys thread but this one is a waste of time with such as JohnD..can't stand his postings..sick making

Ive three questions id like answered,

(A)Investor how should we use the ability rating?.

(B) Why the feck do some members on this board restrict others learning from their expertise or study?.

(C) If they want to restrict or not be inclusive then why not leave us to it, would that not be kinder?.

Honestly!.

Ectoo
It may have escaped your attention, but this thread comes under the title Van Der Wheil, a subject that some have put many years of work into, and do happen to understand a little more than the layman. Some, maybe, even understand enough to sneer back at the sneerers, of which you are one of the worst examples.
That that troubles you is a situation entirely of your own making, imaginary demons and all, and will persist while-ever you continue in your attempts to destroy what is a long standing and very useful, (to some), study of its prime subject.