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I should have said that the selection must be forecast favourite at odds of 4/5 or above.
Hi Dave.In the true spirit of the season I decided to bring this little offering to the party.
1. Use Daily Mail
2. Non-Handicap hurdle races of five to eighteen runners inclusive.
3. Must be the selection of Robin Goodfellow,Gimcrack,Formcast.
4. Forecast price must be 4/5 or over.
5. Must have raced in current season.
6. Must not have refused,pulled up,fell or ran out in its last race.
7. Operate from December 1st to end of March.Only one selection today. Pop,1.20 Market Rasen.
Back in 1983/84 there were 28 winners from 33 selections. Longest winning run was 11, LLR was 2. But obviously very short SPs.
Regards, Dave.(goodlife)
I also care, very much.It is hard to see how any meaningful speed figures can ever be calculated while this situation exists.And the infuriating thing is that measuring distances as Prufrock has suggested would be neither expensive or greatly inconvenient.
Hi CD,
I do not personally know of any provider of information who has ever had a winning run of two years duration. I suggested this time span for the sake of argument. I am open to correction but I think it unlikely in the extreme that any subscription service has ever had such a run.
Regards,goodlife
Hi Mr E
I take on board all that you say and in this age of the internet maybe there are services which really do cut the mustard. Your approach is logical and of course form-based advice such as is featured in the Pricewise column is in a totally different category.
If I remember rightly didn’t Melvyn Collier of Pricewise start a private service? Going back further, many of Mark Coton’s selections were truly inspired.You are also right in that form study is a very time-consuming business and the idea of "sub-contracting" out some of the work involved is very attractive.
What I can’t get my head around is why someone whose selections really have a winning edge should want to share them. And I don’t believe the old chestnut that they are unable to get the bet that they want to have on. There are ways that exist now to have as large a wager as one wishes.Regards,goodlife
Mr E
I am very glad that you have found two providers of racing information who are making money for you and wish you well, long may it continue.I do not dispute that there are tipsters out there who will have long winning runs lasting maybe a couple of years. But in the long run – which is what counts – they will all lose. I was not making an ill thought out reply to the opening post. Several friends of mine have told me hair-curling stories about their experiences with these charlatans.Why on earth would anyone who possessed confidential information about a horse’s wining chance pass it on to a complete stranger? It is ultimately up to oneself whether or not to subscribe to a tipping service and if anyone is of the opinion that I was talking rubbish, then go ahead and hand over your cash, don’t let me stop you.
The best way
forward for any newcomer to racing is to be realistic and to realise that skilful punting is a craft that has to be learned.Let me be quite clear right away and in the process I will save you a fortune. There is not a tipster in existence who has your interests at heart.Paying for "information" is tantamount to throwing money down a bottomless well. Please do not believe anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.
There are some very knowledgeable people on this forum whose contributions you would be better advised to take note of.Formath, your work is excellent and you are an inspiration to the rest of us.
I was busy for most of yesterday but Denman was undoubtedly the class horse in the field.Once again, well done.In the money again, and at a value price.Well done, Formath. Do you think you have VDW sorted?
I laid Granit Jack, didn’t think it had the credentials to win today but I detest being right in these circumstances. All my commiserations to the connections.
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.
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.Hello John,
Hope your head isn’t hurting too much today!
I haven’t VDW’d any of today’s races. When looking at my own past records, I find that making N.H. selections beginning with the Paddy Power Gold Cup meeting seems to make a lot of sense. The winner of this race (although I am open to correction on this point) has never, on all the occasions on which I have VDW’d the race,
been outside of the top four ability ratings.Cheers,GL,
Who knows how far we all might go pooling our thoughts.
Garstonf,
That’s one of the best, most constructive, posts I’ve read since I joined TRF.This continues to be an absorbing thread.
This weekend I’ll post up a couple of races from Saturday’s card(s) and, as a practical, experential exercise for those, like me, who are still in the process of developing our understanding of this approach, I’ll invite all and sundry to ‘VDW’ the races in question. I might even have a go myself. Should be interesting.
The next time I see one which looks like a good thing I’ll put it up.I’ll probably end up with egg on my face!
Hensman
But most of us want to go further than back just the Little Owl types, and at the very least find the Sunset Cristo equivalents. That requires being able to dispose of higher or equal ability-rated horses with confidence – and VDW’s comments re Fair View and Tragus help – but also being able to recognise a dangerous lower ability-rated horse. When one is confident with these, maybe one starts wanting to find the Gaye Chance types, where even more judgement has to be exercised. Etc etc.
Point taken, and this is what we all aspire to.I am sure that I am far from being alone in having been caught out by "a dangerous lower-ability horse".
When reading through the article in which VDW selected Little Owl and Sunset Cristo as " racing certainties", what comes over is the utter conviction in the mind of the writer that he was correct. In his letter to "Win" of Brighton he stated (regarding Little Owl) that "in that race and on that day Wayward Lad had no chance whatsoever of beating Little Owl."
The sort of positive thinking to which johnboyirish refers. JBI has also raised the subject of temperament, discussion of which should be mandatory in any thread introducing VDW ideas to newcomers.VDW stated time and again that without this indispensable asset all else – ability ratings, form study,etc – would be worthless.Temperament is defined as the ability to "make judgements on real evidence", "to evaluate with cold unemotional logic".
Thoughts,Anyone?I thhink that this thread is doing a good job of introducing VDW methods to anyone interested. Several of the people on here seem to be well down the road to understanding what he was trying to put across and I, for one, would like to express my thanks for their helpful contributions.
The idea of achieving a high winning percentage when making horse-race selections will ensure that VDW and his methods will always be discussed, both on this forum and elsewhere.But what we will all have to realise is that there can be no way around the fact that to properly get to grips with the methods many hours of research will be required. The booklets will have to be read and re-read in tandem with study of those "thirty-year old races".
As I said in a previous post, if one is patient and disciplined there are occasions when the class/form horse is so obvious it would be impossible to miss for anyone with even a passing acquaintance with VDW’s methods. If one can restrict wagers to these occasions I am sure a very high strike-rate could be obtained. What is needed is the discipline to leave well alone unless the horse "sticks out like a sore thumb".
