quote:

What we need to do, it seems to me, is not to worry about how we might personally view those performances but rather to try to identify from the conclusions he reached, and other examples, the criteria Van der Wheil used to assess them.

George,

I 100% agree. Can I ask how you view the elimination of BL in the Erin. Out of form, or form not good enough?

Be Lucky

quote:

Originally posted by johnd:
AC

It should be fairly obvious, even to a comparative novice, that gd1 tracks near the major training centres will generally attract better horses than similar value races at farflung gaffs.

I agree, so where is the contradiction between what I posted earlier and my comment on WL/LO

Mtoto

Sorry to be pedantic, but neither. I think he failed to pass Van der Wheil's test as to whether or not a horse was a form horse, which I see as being a bit different, and therefore didn't make it to the stage where comparing form comes into play.

To explain what I mean, a horse can seem to the non Van der Wheil punter to be in form, most obviously because it won its last race. But if I am correct, winning his last race does not on its own make a horse a form horse. Unfortunately, Van der Wheil did not explicitly name many horses as not form horses, but I think, for example, Overdrive, one of the probables in the race won by Nomadic Way, would not have been viewed as a form horse, and he was a last time out winner.

The issue I am currently exploring - the balance between ability and form - may be relevant here. Compare two of the horses Van der Wheil specifically stated he backed - Clayside and Von Trappe. Both in straightforward races in the sense that in my view the consistent horses were all probables. But while Von Trappe had the highest ability rating of the consistent horses in his race, I am not clear that he had the best form, while Clayside had clearly the best form of the consistent horses in his race, but was not the highest on ability. I have a very tentative view about how this apparent inconsistency might be resolved, but there are not many Van der Wheil example races where the possible tension comes into play.

quote:

Sorry to be pedantic, but neither. I think he failed to pass Van der Wheil's test as to whether or not a horse was a form horse, which I see as being a bit different, and therefore didn't make it to the stage where comparing form comes into play.

George,

Ok, I'll go with that. Which test did he fail, and what is that test based on? That reads to me it has to be a statistical failure, if you say he didn't make the stage where form is compared.

Be Lucky

Mtoto

I think he failed the test the primary element set out in the earlier post detailing what I see as the relevant numbers for Roushayd and Decent Fellow. If you set Beacon Light's last three runs out in the same way, the initial picture is of a horse whose last run represented a decline in form.

As noted, that is definitely not the end of the story, and the situation needs to be checked against relevant runners, in this case Sea Pigeon. Looking at Sea Pigeon's recent form as per Drumgora with Prominent King, I think Van der Wheil concluded that that did not lead him to change the view he reached on the initial numerical picture.

quote:

Originally posted by john in brasil:
A horse's performance, and hence an indication of it's true ability, can only be judged by the quality of horse's it has raced against.

Its not just the horses it had behind it (winning), it can also be the horses it had around it (tight finish), or the horses it had infront of it (beaten).

Of course not all performances can be considered as being of a revealing nature as sometimes luck played its hand or the horse wasn't really trying etc etc. The secret is to isolate the performances that are 'key' indicators.

Key races for me tend to have several of the following considerations, big fields, no big price winners and/or placers,

upped in class, not unduly pushed out, and career high or near high ratings.

A horse with this sort of profile usually takes a decent prize before too long.

And are we supposed to guess when that will be? In that case,how did VDW judge when a horse was in or out of form?
Rather than going back 30 years, I will use the last decent day's racing (Saturday 16th Aug) to illustrate the perils of trusting collateral form as a guide.
Was SPORAZENE out of form when he finished behind the modest Lemon Silk 2 races ago? Not according to the 16l he won his previous race by.
Was PACO BOY out of form when he finished a head in front of the ordinary Bermuda Rye? Not according to the series of 6 wins he built up either side of that race. From the same race; was TAMAYUZ out of form when he finished behind the aforementioned Bermuda Rye? Again, not according to his unbeaten record before and since.
Was UNDERWORLD out of form when 21/25 behind a host of horses inferior to himself? His 3 wins and a 2nd in his only other 4 races suggest entirely the opposite.
All highly consistent horses that put in ostensibly a bad run, and none of them explicable by A beating B, but as VDW showed us in SIAO, there is much more to understanding form than that.
Of course, you are always welcome to believe otherwise.

If you set Beacon Light's last three runs out in the same way, the initial picture is of a horse whose last run represented a decline in form.

George,

Again I'll go with that, but set out the last three runs of PK, Baronet, Soaf, and Celtic Pleasure and compare them with BL.

Looking at Sea Pigeon's recent form as per Drumgora with Prominent King, I think Van der Wheil concluded that that did not lead him to change the view he reached on the initial numerical picture.

That just doesn't hold up, are you saying SP's form doesn't compare favourably with D's?? Also you said BL failed BEFORE form comes into the equation.

Be Lucky

Does anybody else go along with what johnd say's that,

SPORAZENE, PACO BOY, TAMAYUZ AND UNDERWORLD WERE highly consistent can not see that myself look forward to your opinions

Mtoto

quote:

Looking at Sea Pigeon's recent form as per Drumgora with Prominent King, I think Van der Wheil concluded that that did not lead him to change the view he reached on the initial numerical picture.

That just doesn't hold up, are you saying SP's form doesn't compare favourably with D's?? Also you said BL failed BEFORE form comes into the equation.

Last time out, Drumgora came a very decent 3rd in a very much higher class race. Last time out, Sea Pigeon fell, and the time before that he won a race of lower class. "Higher" and "lower" here relative to the win prize money values of the races against which the comparisons need to be made (the class 6 in the case of Prominent King, the class 39 in the case of Beacon Light).

As regards timing, Van der Wheil's approach was clearly one of elimination, and can be thought of as like the FA Cup, though with less stages. In the first round, out go the minnows - the non consistent horses. In the second round (if there are more than three consistent horses left) out go any non probables. In the third round (where as in the FA Cup the competition really begins to get interesting), out go any horses which are not form horses. In the fourth round, those still in are compared in terms of ability, form and capability, and hopefully a clear selection emerges (as, for example, with Little Owl and Sunset Cristo in the March 1981 article). Finally (and here the FA Cup analogy breaks down) the selection is considered in terms of probability: yes, X is is the most likely winner, but is he sufficiently likely (and presumably Van der Wheil uses an 80% threshold) to win? As we know with the likes of Kenlis and Billet, the answer at the final stage was often "no".

Against that view, I think Beacon Light failed in the third round, and only Prominent King and Mr Kildare made it through to round four, and Van der Wheil gave us a fairly full account of why, from a comparative form perspective, the former went through to the final stage. I wish I could be certain whether the answer at that stage was "yes" or "no".

I agree that at round three setting out the initial data does not always give the answer, and as with Prominent King the impression one gets from it sometimes needs revision when the performances are considered not just against the win prize money values of the races but also against the other runners. And of course one needs to bear in mind that, very occasionally, Van der Wheil was prepared to overlook a run, as he showed us with Gaye Chance in the March 1981 article.

Paul

The way I currently understand Van der Wheil, the key initial judgement is which are the consistent horses.

Of the four horses Johnd refers to, Paco Boy and Underworld were most certainly consistent horses:

Paco Boy had a consistency total of 9, one of the three lowest in the first five of the betting.

Underworld is a nice example of the Gaye Chance type. Obviously completely out of its depth in its last run in a race of miles higher class than that of his previous races or Saturday's, so one can ignore the placing and, using the three before, he scores 5. Assuming, as I do from his sp, that he was in the first six of the forecast, he was a consistent horse, as any horse with a score of 3, 4 or 5 in the first 5 (non handicaps) or 6 (handicaps) of the forecast will always be a consistent horse. (3, 4 and 5 are of course the three lowest scores possible.)

Tamayuz is in my view debatable. I don't have the card and therefore the betting forecast but if, as their sps suggest, Sageburg, Major Cadeaux and Natagora were in the first five of the forecast, they would have been the horses with the three lowest consistency scores.

However, in the March 1981 article (the first two paragraphs in the "First Five in the Betting" section), Van der Wheil made it clear that he also considered "highly consistent" horses from outside the first five in the forecast, and the likes of Prominent King suggest that this also applied to horses in the first five/six of the forecast which did not have one of the three lowest consistency scores.

Van der Wheil does not specify exactly what he meant, so as with much else we have to consider his words and his examples. My own view is that, save for the consideration discussed below, Tamayuz would not count as a "highly consistent" horse. However, reading the comments about Tamayuz's lowest placing, there is reference to him having had a poor draw. I haven't yet spotted an example where Van der Wheil seems to have excused a run, as he did with Gaye Chance, for draw reasons, but logically there is no reason why he shouldn't have. (We might for example reasonably excuse a low placing run by an otherwise consistent sprinter drawn outside in a full field at Chester.)

In sum, if Johnd views Tamayuz as a consistent horse because he excuses the lowest placing run on draw grounds, that seems to me absolutely reasonable. If he views him as a "highly consistent" horse under the two paragraphs in the March 1981 article referred to above, I would disagree with him, though I don't think any of us can be absolutely certain we are right on this point.

Sporazene. As with Tamayuz, I don't have the card, and from the sps it is impossible to be sure which were the first six in the forecast. If you happpen to know, I'd be glad to offer a view. With a consistency score of 13, Sporazene could be a consistent horse, but obviously not if many other runners had lower scores, and it depends in part on their positions in the forecast.

My view, as a punter who does not understand or use vdw methodology in my daily betting business, is that JIB is pretty much on the ball as regards what actually happens in racing.

Years ago, I was very much taken by the prize-money -won aspect of vdw. My initial enthusiasm waned considerably, when I found "class horses" failing to do the business when I thought they should.

Years later, having listened to owners, trainers and jockeys ( or in harnessracing, drivers), I have realised that the reason horses are not always out for a win - even in top class races - is because "they" have decided that a more profitable course of action will be to forfeit the "obvious" good race in favour of a more lucrative betting return in a more mundane race on a later day.

I'm afraid that's what they do, whether we like it or not.

Finally, I made Paco Boy the vdw bet of the day purely on prize money. I had no idea he was also a "consistent" horse; didn't even bother to check.
I did experiment with all that fineform -like point tallying one time, but my profit line at the end of the two years showed that it wasn't for me.
However, I would like to ask George J how well are the D Mail Formcast numbers doing? I think that may be a useful and handy reference to be used in conjunction with other things.

After scores of years on this earth, we realise that time is our most precious asset. Personally, I haven't enough left to waste on farting about with my own calcs when there's a ready-made figure to be had that's every bit as good ( even though I cannot abide the D Mail).

Obviously, there are numerous ways to kill a cat or skin a rabbit; johnd will know them all, or, deny them all. I sometimes think that, like vdw, he is some mythical character that Gummy has invented just to keep this thread alive, by always coming the cnt, no matter what anyone suggests or explains.
Anyway, bollix to him; let's get a few winners!

Paul/Sean

If either of you ever get past the stage where you think VDW is a 'paint by numbers' exercise, you might actually learn something - otherwise, feel free to carry on colouring your books in.

i see were taking about paco boy today i hope i can finnish this before my laptop blows up what is said by posters, about paco,s next race will help me come on a bit

quote:

out go any horses which are not form horses. In the fourth round, those still in are compared in terms of ability, form and capability, and hopefully a clear selection emerges (as, for example, with Little Owl and Sunset Cristo in the March 1981 article).

George,

When this discussion started I asked do you think BL was eliminated because he was a none form horse, or his form just wasn't good enough. No matter how you wrap it up you are saying he is a none form horse, I don't agree, but will go along with that for the moment.

Looking at the facts the only race that he (BL) fails in is his last one. Yesterday I posted four other horses that for me questions can be asked about their last races, to that I would add Ekbalco. I can see why the last race is important IF you are working to a horse needs to be progressive to fulfil "the one race better than another" quote. I think you have started to answer why you think PK's run is acceptable, although I do find the answer very strange when I can see no way the same logic is being applied to BL's last race. If two leading contenders from the Champion Hurdle don't raise the class of the race, nothing will!! The question now is, BL fails, why don't the other four? They must be form horse to be selections.

Be Lucky

GJ

The draw was only part of the reason for Tamayuz's seemingly poor run, there is more to it than that - Rio De La Plata, drawn next to him, finished 2nd in the race.

Generally
Anyone who seriously believes that horses of the calibre of the 4 mentioned were non-triers - or blew up, and came back into form on their next appearance really has no chance of ever understanding how VDW read form.

who,s it to be paco or ravens passits ravens for me

JOHND
If i am to learn somthing there is a big ? mark over learning anything from yourself .Did you put the 4 horses you previously mentioned on this thread or another thread before they won, only at the moment i can not find the evidence, please point me to the correct thread.

Johnd

I've only glanced at the race, but we seem to be on the same tack as you seem to have made Tamayuz a consistent horse by disregarding that seemingly disappointing run, and that seems absolutely reasonable to me.


Mtoto

Yes, I do think Van der Wheil regarded Beacon Light as not a form horse, and the fact that Sea Pigeon had earlier run well in the Champion Hurdle is, on my current understanding of his approach, beside the point.

Try the likes of Baronet yourself. He works out very straightforwardly on the lines I'm suggesting, very like Prominent King. (Though you may find it easier if you ignore the name of the horse who won the race in which Baronet ran before the Cambridgeshire and concentrate solely on that horse's immediately previous form.)

Sean

In a so far entirely fruitless effort to crack the ratings Van der Wheil gave in the final two columns of the four tables in his March 1981 article, I have had dug out for me the Mail ratings for many of the Van der Wheil races, but nothing more recent than about 1985. I don't take the Mail as my daily and have no idea how useful their ratings are for current races.

quote:

Try the likes of Baronet yourself. He works out very straightforwardly on the lines I'm suggesting, very like Prominent King.

George,

I don't have to try B, or any of the other horses mentioned. They ALL work for me in exactly the same way. Although if I'm honest I can't make ANY of them work the way you and others are suggesting without a lot of juggling and excuses. I suppose you are going to make Petronisi a none form horse, Celtic Pleasures last run "acceptable" and Ekbalco the exception to the rule.

Be Lucky