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Cormack,
Does this mean I’m cleared to post on here?
And…finally – "it is the balance between class, form and the other factors [by which he meant capability and probability] which shows the good things" – surely that is the basis for ANY selection process worth it’s salt.
I would agree wholeheartedly with the above statement, but I think we are being asked to believe it doesn’t count in hcps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Be Lucky
Agree to disagree maybe .. ?
What annoys me more than anything, is the folk that say that things don’t work and want hard and fast rules to work from to prove it doesn’t without offering anything up that might work. (Not you Prufrock because you have).
How is new blood ever going to get interested in the game?
Mtoto – of course you’re cleared to post.
136 – Lundy’s Lane
096 – All The Good 1st 8/1
Pru is quite correct, Class has little or no part to play in the results of handicap races, however this could depend on your interpretation of ‘Class’.
I’m quite surprised Pru has even bothered to post in this thread, given the obvious lack of logic that came up with Canditato Roy. It didn’t really matter what handicap race Canditato Roy appeared in in this country he would always come out as the horse with the most prize money vs starts or whatever irrevelant figure it was.
To play devils advocate somewhat I’d ask Pru what his starting point is when viewing a race. I would wager that it doesn’t involve any divisions of prize money vs starts
Pru is quite correct, Class has little or no part to play in the results of handicap races, however this could depend on your interpretation of ‘Class’.
Sailing Shoes,
Can I play devils advocate as well, and ask what your interpretation of class is? I notice this idea that class pays no part in hcps has also been voiced by Guskennedy. I can understand his thinking up to a point as he specialises in sprints.
Pru at least has given an idea of how he looks at a race, as I said then I condsider I look at much the same. However because I’m interested in VDW I appear to have an illogical view on the project. However this thread has gone a fair way in explaining why I can often get well over the odds on some of my selections, I do wonder how many think class doesn’t effect the result in hcps. Its great to have an edge.
Be Lucky
I also specialise in sprints – maybe thats where it stems from then?
Class – isn’t something that I would figure into my calculations when assessing a horses chance in a handicap race. The horses at the top of the handicap are, according to the handicapper of highly ability than those towards the bottom – I wouldn’t consider them classier, just of higher ability.
I suppose you could determine Class as the overall strengths of a horse – intelligence etc… and this can sometimes have an effect on a result.
It is all about interpretations…… but trying to give a value for class would seem extremely difficult and the weight i’d attach to compared to others would be very very small.
We seem to be covering everything here.
What is class? Is it not merely the horse’s handicap rating? I hope we are not going to get respondents saying:
Weight doesn’t matter, therefore handicap ratings don’t matter, in which case they cannot be used to represent a horse’s class.Artemis,
I hope we have got past the stage that weight doesn’t matter
I wouldn’t determine class as the horses handicap rating – that is reflection on the horses current level of ability.
Sailing Shoes,
Thanks for your reply, and as you say it is just down to interpretation. VDW uses the word class when he is looking at ability. I don’t usually work with sprints as I have found sheer speed often cancels out class/ability, and it is easier for a sprinter to bridge the class barriers.
Artemis,
While I do use OR’s as part of my measure of class, I’m nearly frightened to say actual weight carried doesn’t come into the equation for me. Here I must say that isn’t a VDW point of view just my own.
Be Lucky
Sailing Shoes
As you surmised, part of the argument here is due to folk using the same word – class – to have different meanings. For VDW, class (he used class and ability as synonyms) in relation to a horse was what you mean by ability, and the ability rating was his way of giving it numerical expression. As is clear from the thread, some still use it, while others have moved on to what they regard as more effective alternatives.
Hensman, I don’t know how to assess class properly, I suspect that methods are devised that people are happy with rather than anything that is definitive. If you did come up with a definitive answer to the class question, I don’t think anyone would be posting it on an internet forum.
Dave
I agree. Given the numerous other factors which need to be taken into account, I think it would be very difficult, maybe even impossible, to undertake research into ways of measuring class that would arrive at a definitive "best". And even if this could be done one suspects there would be no "knock out" winner; rather one that worked best in a (perhaps only slightly) higher percentage of cases than others.
The problem I have with Candidto Roy being a VDW selection is that it was not in the first six in the betting. On my understanding it has to be in the first six in the betting .
Perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of ‘class’ is the confusion over weight. What is not generally understood is that while both saddle burden and class are measured in lbs they are not the same thing at all. That is not unsurprising if one considers what exactly they consist of.
It helps if we understand that a horse’s first official mark is generally the result of competing in races with a weight free environment. The OR is born as a measure of ability and not as a reflection of weight carried.
A horse’s mark determines the quality of opposition it runs against. As such the idea that class plays no part in deciding handicaps is an inversion of what is actually vital to the outcome. If class played no part in handicaps there would be no need to restrict the upper limit of the mark.
My own take on VDW is that he teaches us firstly, to understand what exactly what class is, and then secondly, the vital importance for the racing enthusiast to find some way of gauging that relative to each of the horses in the race.
Sailing Shoes
Artemis,
I hope we have got past the stage that weight doesn’t matter
I wouldn’t determine class as the horses handicap rating – that is reflection on the horses current level of ability.
OK, perhaps you would have to consider what level a horse had reached in the past and its potential to return to that level, but generally the class of race a horse competes in is dependent on its rating which is derived from the best of its previous form.
If a horse outclasses the opposition in a handicap, its rating is raised to the point where it eventually becomes ineligible for such races.
Listed class horses can improve to Group Class and so on up the pyramid of ability.
As far as I can see, prize money is irrelevant because it is generally in proportion to the class of the race, with exceptions for certain races in this country and in other countries where the levels of prize money are higher across the board.
I think there is a situation where a horse can win a low grade race carrying a big weight, earn a certain rating and then fail to run to that rating in a higher grade carrying a low weight. This is because the horse cannot run any faster regardless of what weight it is carrying, so cannot compete in the higher grade. That apart, the handicap rating seems a fairly accurate gauge of a horse’s ability or class.
Maggsy
In the March 1981 article to which I have made reference VDW wrote:
"Taking all races, other figures show that 83% of winners come from the first five quotes in the betting forecast. This also shows that selecting a horse which does not appear in this range is again tantamount to going against the odds. The only exception I make to this is when a highly consistent horse fails to show in this area of the forecast".
The 83% figure was not VDW’s – it was given in an article in the 20 April 1978 Sporting Chronicle Handicap Book by their systems expert, "Methodmaker".
In the other letter to which I referred, published in the 18 April 1981 edition of the SCHB, VDW gave part of his definition of "highly consistent horse" and showed the rest of the definition via his examples.
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