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Garston
From memory (not from 1978 but from when I was researching the examples from the Life, Chronicle, Mail, Racing Calendar etc, much more recently) the Erin was not in the Chronicle, but I’ll check that as and when an opportunity presents.
The forecast VDW used was the Daily Mail’s – at least, the first five in the betting forecast he names were as in the Mail’s. The Life had Meladon instead of Monkfield, the other four being the same.
Hensman
If it is of any interest the betting forecast from my local evening paper was 11/8 Beacon Light, 3/1 Decent Fellow, 6/1 Prominent King, 8/1 Mr Kildare, Monksfield, 10/1 Meladon. This paper reached the shops on Friday afternoon and only the Erin meeting was shown. So the other four meetings due to take place on the Saturday had already been called off. Both the Life and Chronicle would have rolled off the presses on Friday night / Saturday morning so must surely have carried the same solitary meeting.
You said the Life had Meladon instead of Monksfield, is that not proof that VDW did not use the Life that day. VDW wrote “the only race in my paper which was ‘on’ “, that paper then, must be either the Chronicle (which hasn’t been discounted yet) or a national daily newspaper, such as the one you mentioned, the Daily Mail.
If it were a national daily (obviously with good racing coverage) then he must have gone down the cards marking off the 3 most consistent in his chosen races. Could he then have calculated his 2 ratings from information in that paper, then and only then, as the text suggests in the Erin example, check the form. To check the form he could only have read the form summary from his daily, or check the form book if he subscribed to it, or trot off to his local bookies to check out the racing papers.Garston
You wrote: "You said the Life had Meladon instead of Monksfield, is that not proof that VDW did not use the Life that day."
No, all it proves is that he didn’t use the Life forecast. The five he showed are consistent with the Mail’s, as there is reference to the Mail elsewhere in VDW’s writings (and no reference to any other national paper, I think).
Garston
I’ve now found my notes and was wrong to suggest the Chronicle had not included the Erin. It had, and the forecast was:
11/8 Beacon Light
7/2 Decent Fellow
11/2 Prominent King
13/2 Meladon
8/1 Monksfield, Mr Ki SaveI have typed the last horse as printed in the Chronicle, but given the other runners it must clearly have meant to be Mr Kildare. (Probably put together by the same people as did the Grauniad.)
You are right that anyone who just had access to the Chronicle would have no idea how many, if any, races any of the runners had won, only if there had been any wins in the number of races whose places were recorded for each (not very many).
Garston,
Of course I’m not sure where your coming from about the Sporting Chronicle, but for me there are two reasons why I think PERHAPS that was the racing paper of choice. The first being how would VDW have worked the Desert Hero "method" if he didn’t regularly used that paper and checked the results over a good time? The other has been mentioned.
You must realise that by suggesting in anyway the Life wasn’t used does bring into doubt the use of the ability rating, as without the Life it becomes a long laborious job working out that rating. Although it should be noted the only forecast shown before the introduction of that rating WASN’T a forecast coming from the Life. Coincidence, possibly? From memory I don’t think the wording of the Old Fellow examples matches the Life’s forecast, not sure about the SC forecast though.
Be Lucky
Crock
VDW wrote “One method I use (note the word I) selects perhaps two or three horses per week, never more and the prices seldom exceed 2-1, but THEY NEARLY ALL WIN. Another gives ME no more than a couple of dozen ALL YEAR, but it is UNUSUAL FOR ONE TO LOSE. Yet another finds not more than one a day, but not every day with a WIN PERCENTAGE WELL INTO THE EIGHTIES and all manner of prices, for instance, March 12, Desert Hero 20-1 and for the Cheltenham Festival…Gaye Brief 7-1, Badsworth Boy 2-1, and the Gold Cup winner Bregawn 100-30. All these were achieved with the aid of NOTHING MORE than can be found EACH DAY in the Sporting Chronicle.â€
garstonf
I wonder how VDW felt when he had a sure fire money making method taken away from him.
VDW later,on two occasions, suggested another way to operate this method.
In his article written for Tony Peach (January 18,1986: The VDW Approach). he advised readers to concentrate on the principal handicap chase and the principal non-handicap chase and evaluate the form of the first two or three horses in the betting forecast.After completing one’s evaluation a wager should only be made if the resultant selection is one of the first two in the forecast.He later more or less reiterated this advice in a letter to a Mr K.Spiers which Tony Peach published in "Systems In My Racing".
In the original method, which as we know was based around the Sporting Chronicle, the selection seems to have come from "the three most popular selections in certain races, of perhaps a dozen runners."
Over the years I have found my most confident selections using VDW methods to be one of the first two in the betting forecast.A slight amendment to my previous post.VDW’s advice was to"evaluate the race keeping in mind that form horses win a high percentage of races". After evaluating bet only if the selection is in the first two,B/F.
Hensman
From your research it has now been established that the 5 horses listed in the Erin example were not the forecast from the Sporting Life or Chronicle and there is a very strong possibility that VDW used the Daily Mail on that day. Personally, I don’t believe VDW had either the Life or the Chronicle on that day for two very good reasons.
1) I can’t see why VDW would choose a forecast from a daily newspaper over a sporting daily. This would show he had no faith in the forecast from that sporting daily.
2) All English racing had been abandoned from Thu, Feb 9, right up to that Sat, Feb 18, and even beyond. In fact English racing did not resume until Fri, Feb 24. So what would be the point of buying a racing daily if you knew there would be nothing in it.
Now, VDW mentioned weights carried last time out, where did he get this information? Hensman, I don’t know if you took any photo-copies from the Mail but I suspect there may have been a form summary of the fancied horses under each race, most likely written by Robin Goodfellow. If it exists you may find the phrase “Beacon Light had a hard race against Sea Pigeonâ€Garstonf
I have a raceform up-to-date chaseform 1977/88
which says Postal Subscription Edition. If you tell me what i’m looking for I can check it for youhal
Garston
The evidence from the examples is that sometimes VDW used the Mail forecast and sometimes the Life. Why this variation seems to me anybody’s guess.
It is possible VDW bought the Life and/or Chronicle on the day in question, because the weather was breaking and there was hope that English racing would re-commence, at Chepstow and Lingfield. Indeed I can tell you from a copy of the front page I was sent that the Chronicle was bullish both about the English racing going ahead and the prospects for Beacon Light. But my guess is that you are probably right.
I also think you are probably right in suggesting that VDW built his form book up from the SCHB sections.
With regard to the issue of ratings, we know from the March 1981 examples that VDW generated his own, and one of them bears similarity to those in the Mail. (One of the sets of ratings for the Little Owl example is, for each horse, exactly 12 higher than the Mail ratings, and there are comparabilities, though by no means 100%, in the other three examples. May or may not be coincidence.) But in the Erin example, I think it highly probable VDW was referring to rating, not ratings, and he made it clear elsewhere that rating and ratings were two different things.
Hal
You will note that your subscription edition is made up of individual sections or booklets bound together by a shoelace. If you go to race 2243 it should be the Erin. At the top of that page in small letters it should say Raceform Up-to-Date (Chaseform) followed by a date possibly 18 March, 1978. Turn back a few pages (towards the front of the book) until you come to the page headed CHASEFORM UP-TO-DATE in much larger letters followed by Sat., and the same date as before followed by a number in brackets like (No, 17). That is the beginning of that particular section. Now go back through each section until you come to the one headed Sat., Feb 18. It could be headed Feb 11 or Feb 4 but it cannot be dated after Feb 18. That is the last section that would have been in your form book at the time of the Erin. Go to the last page of that particular section and note the last race number. Beacon Light’s last race was number 2175 and Mr Kildare’s was 2125. If the last race number that you noted was lower than these then their form would not have been in the book. Neither would it have been for quite a few others in the race. I hope all this has been easy to follow.
Finally, go to the white section at the front of the book and you should find an index of horses with their race record from previous seasons. Look up Prominent King and you will see two wins in 75-76.
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