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Maggsy
The RSB figures you quote demonstrate why VDW said he only rarely went outside the first six in the betting forecast (handicaps). And of course when he did include such a horse for detailed consideration it would not become a selection if it failed on his other criteria.
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.
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.
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.
Prufrock
Might I suggest that you talk to one of the Official Handicappers? I have, over the years, and they are generally speaking very friendly and forthcoming.
When I checked a few minutes ago, Strategic Mount and John Terry were non runners in the 3.10 Ascot, and Persian Express in the 4.55. If any more come out, the following may need adjustment, but if not the consistent horses, in decending order of ability rating, in the two handicaps are:
3.10
136 – Lundy’s Lane
096 – All The Good
092 – Rampallion
087 – Before You Go
086 – Millville
081 – Mikao
068 – Mustajed
047 – Ladies Best
047 – Prince Sabaah4.55
244 – Pentecost
102 – Prince Of Thebes
071 – Kinsya
067 – River Tiber
052 – SamarindaThe ONLY significance attaching to these two lists is that, for VDW’s basic method, these are the horses which would be further evaluated to see if any (or any combination) warrant backing. VDW never claimed that these lists always contained the winners; only that a high proportion of winners come from those horses in such lists that stand up to scrutiny in terms of whether they are in form and on capability grounds.
Cormack
The site I have seen where the basic VDW letters can be viewed was a free one. My purpose in mentioning it was merely, if anyone else had the url, is that it would afford a chance for those wanting to read the article to which I made reference to do so for free. The only other free source I know is the British Library, but that is only useful if one lives or works in London.
Prufrock
You miss the point. Ask the Official Handicapper before yesterday’s race which in his opinion was the best horse in the field, and he’d reply Lovelace, then Candidato Roy and Mine, etc etc. But that is NOT the same question as asking him which in his opinion was the most likely winner. The only aspect that he controls is weight, and if weight was the only consideration by and large there would be no betting on handicaps, because as you rightly say on that single criterion the Handicapper does his best to equalize chances. But he has no control over whether a horse is currently in form or not, whether it is running over its best distance or not, whether it will like the going or not, whether it will act on the course or not, etc etc. All these factors need to be taken fully into account, and the whole object of VDW’s approach was to show that "it is the balance between class, form and the other factors [by which he meant capability and probability] which shows the good things".
Lets be clear about the above.
Mtoto referred to having identified Candidato Roy as a selection by his understanding of VDW. I have merely demonstrated the basic numerics by which anyone reasonably well versed in the VDW approach would have reached a shortlist of the field in which not only would Candidato Roy have been included but would have demanded attention by virtue of having, within that shortlist, the highest ability rating.
The demonstration shows how VDW sought to balance class and form (naively, some may think). He identified those horses he thought were consistent form horses and, within these, picked the best that was ok on capability. Whether, if he was analysing races today, he would be using the same "tools" as in the late 1970s (ie win prize money divided by number of races won for class) we don’t know, but that was what he used then.
While one member is on record on this thread as saying he thinks that way of assessing class is the proven best, personally I am among those who take a different view. But let’s remember how that independent figure the Official Handicapper saw things: highest class horse in the race – Lovelace (OR 109). Second highest class: why Candidato Roy and Mine (both 105). So in this case at least the winner was very near the top of two class measures based on quite different numerics.
Just as a horse at or near the top of the handicap doesn’t always win, so a horse at or near the top of VDW’s ability rating ranking doesn’t always win – and only the barmy would expect them to do as that it only one dimension. (Shevchenko has a good pedigree as a striker but judging by what I saw last night on Match of the Day he is currently sorely out of form and was taken off early in the second half.) But it is one dimension, and VDW’s work, if studied, shows not only what the other important elements are (form and capability in particular) but gives one a start on how to put them into practice.
Wallace
The two basic ratings are simplicity themselves (at least for Flat races):
Ability: take the "Total win prize money" figure for the horse as shown in the Post’s form page (eg for Candidato Roy today the figure was £107,819), and divide by the number of races won times 100 (in CR’s case 4 x 100). Thus his rating was 270 (rounded, no need for decimal places).
Consistency: simply add last three placings, with 1-9 counting as the number and anything from 10 upwards counting as 10. Thus CR today had placings of 1,7,2 = a consistency rating of 10. There is a small complication in that VDW advised, where a horse finished a bad last, counting that as 10, even if there were fewer runners. But it is not a very common situation and basically I ignore it.
For consistency VDW said stick to the five lowest aggregates. In today’s race they were:
03 – Lovelace, Shevchenko
04 – Docofthebay
08 – Mac Gille Eoin
10 – Candidato Roy, Daneshillsundance, Mutanaseb
12 – Utmost RespectAll of these were consistent horses.
For the eight, the ability ratings were, in decending order:
270 – Candidato Roy
137 – Lovelace
107 – Utmost Respect
104 – Docofthebay
074 – Danehillsundance
065 – Shevchenko
063 – Mac Gille Eoin
055 – MutanasebSo from VDW’s perspective, Candidato Roy was the classiest of the consistent horses and is the one that should be considered first, then Lovelace, etc.
Those are only the starting processes of VDW’s basic method. From those eight he would have eliminated any horses who were not, in his idiosyncratic meaning of the term (this is "the missing link"), form horses. Among the eight, one was not a form horse: Mutanaseb ( poorer performance lto than on his penultimate run). So VDW would have evaluated in detail seven horses, in the following order:
270 – Candidato Roy
137 – Lovelace
107 – Utmost Respect
104 – Docofthebay
074 – Danehillsundance
065 – Shevchenko
063 – Mac Gille EoinHe assessed them in terms of capability (going, distance, course and weight). None of the seven scores a maximum, but in my view none gets eliminated, either:
Candidato Roy: distance and course fine; unproven on going, slight questionmark re weight (but only in respect of 1lb!)
Lovelace: distance, course and going fine; unproven with weight
Utmost Respect: going, course and weight fine, unproven over distance
Docofthebay: distance, course and weight fine, unproven on going
Danehillsundance: as Docofthebay
Shevchenko: as Docofthebay
Mac Gille Eoin: weight and course fine; unproven over distance and on going.It is worth noting that, while each was unproven on at least one aspect of capability, none could be said to have proven that it could not cope with that aspect. If, for example, a horse had had several runs over 7f and failed each time, but had won regularly over 5f and 6f, one would probably eliminate him on capability grounds.
Thus Candidato Roy emerges as the class/form horse (a term VDW used later in his writings), because from VDW’s perspective he was the consistent form horse, ok on capability considerations, with the highest ability (class) rating. In a race like this it is to my mind doubtful whether VDW would have viewed it as sensible to back only one, but it is inconceivable that, had he made a book on the race, he’d have left out the class/form horse.
Wallace
I think they have been posted on the net, but I’m not sure where.
Unless someone can help with a url, the easiest way is to get a copy of a booklet "The Golden Years of Van Der Wheil", edited by Tony Peach, in which they are re-printed. It is quite widely available at around £8. They can also be read in the run of Sporting Chronicle Handicap Books, held in the British Library’s Humanities Reading Room (St Pancras, cental London).
Mtoto
Those who followed the procedure shown in VDW’s "Spells it all out" article (28/3/81) have had a good day, with Candidato Roy the highest ability rated consistent horse (and what VDW later referred to as the class/form horse).
I wonder what Graham Wheldon tipped?
Wallace
As to after-timing, all any sceptic needs do is read the article, and the later one (18/4/81) which helps define the phrase "highly consistent horse", apply the simple arithmetic, and prove it for themselves.
Plus I’d bet £100 to an old penny that Candidato Roy will have been named as the class/form horse before the race on one or other VDW forum.
GusKennedy
True. But charitably I preferred to think that your reply was based on ignorance rather the more serious matter of manners.
Drone
You wrote: "Which certainly does not mean looking for more (weaker) bets but certainly does mean upping stakes (if disposable bank allows)".
That certainly seems to have been Marvex’s approach. The suggestion is that doubled his stake once "100% profit is reached", ie when the initial bank had been doubled.
As expected, assertion based on total ignorance. You should apply for a job at Raceform Update.
Guskennedy
And your reasoned critique of VDW’s approach is …
Or are we seeing the "Wheldon" syndrome in action (assertion based on ignorance)?
Lamby
The way to do it is to download the card into sheet 1 of the workbook by the method I summarised in a previous post, and check with downloads from two or three races that what you want always arrives in the same cells (it does with the form downloads I use, ie the details of the first horse are always in row 15, second horse row 16 etc.).
Presuming that the same applies to cards, all you need then do is set up sheet 2 in the workbook as your analysis sheet, and for the data to be copied across from sheet 1 enter the relevant formula. For example, if you wanted the horses’ names listed in col. A of sheet 2, and the first horse’s name in sheet 1 was always in cell T15, the second name in T16 etc, select cell A1 in sheet 2 and enter the formula =Sheet1!T15. Then all you need do is drag the formula down col. A for as many rows as you are likely to need – 30 should be plenty except fot the Grand National! Similarly, if you want the RPR, OR, TS ratings or whatever, note where they start in sheet 1 and then put formulas in the first cells in sheet 2 into which you wish the data to be copied.
It can take a while to set up sheet 2, depending on how much data you want copied across, but you only have to do it once. Save the workbook (without any cell contents) as, say, download.xls, and each time you want to analyse a race, copy it and download the data into the copy. Use that for your analysis, save it in your archive once finished as, say, 27 Sept., 3.30 Pontefract, and go on to the next one. (I suggest always working from a copy because although you can use the original download.xls, saving each race under an appropriate title by the "save as" function, it is easy inadvertently to delete a formula, as well as cell contents, and of course if one does that one has to set the sheet up again.)
With my records workbook, I have about twenty cols. in sheet 2, five of which (where the info. is horse-specific such as weight, and OR, fill up automatically by this means, saving a lot of time in copy typing data. The other cols. are either filled by dragging down a constant – ie g for good going – which applies to all the runners, and thus only needs to be entered in the first cell of the col., or by formulas which link elements in previous cols. So what could, for a big field race like the Cambridgeshire, take the better part of half an hour takes no more than five minutes.
Mtoto
Your question about what has changed that calls into question VDW’s general approach reminded me of the "Only Fools and Horses" episode where the roadsweeper, Trigger, commented that his broom had lasted for twenty years. Del was impressed ’til Trigger added that in that time he’s had five new broomheads and three new handles.
For me, what you refer to as the "general thinking" behind VDW is balancing class and form in the context of capability and probability, and to my mind nothing has happened over the near 30 years since VDW first wrote to the Sporting Chronicle Handicap Book to call that into question. But while the "general thinking" seems to me to be spot on, of itself it doesn’t get one anywhere. To turn it into a profitable approach to race analysis requires the four elements to be broken down into practicalities. And here I think there have been changes in racing which impact on how that is best done.
Take class. I read with interest one member’s assertion that the VDW way of assessing class – win prize money divided by number of wins – is the proven best. Well, not in my view. It very probably was the best when VDW first wrote, but the explosion of sponsorship since has to my mind much distorted that as a measure. I think one needs continuously to test the continuimg efficacy of how VDW put aspects of his thinking into practice, and to be prepared to adapt.
A good example is time/speed. VDW advised using speed figures as a check on the ability of relatively lightly raced horses, including those without a win, and his selection of the Guineas winner, To-Agori-Mou, a horse with a very low win prize money based ability rating, shows that aspect of his approach in action. But there is a considerable difference between the Form Book speed ratings VDW used (adjusted by the compilers to a standard weight) and the Form Book speed ratings today (which take no direct account of weight). We can’t simply assume that the current ratings will work in the same way as those of VDW’s day.
The "Trigger" issue is how far can one change the ways in which VDW put issues like class and form into practice and still regard oneself as a VDWer? And I suggest that it is really a question of no significance. Although VDW was the first to articulate the essence of winner finding in the way he did in a popular publication, as I’ve noted on a previous post he was writing in the same vein as a number of earlier analysts, mainly in the US but also Marvex in the UK. Thus while like quite a few others I am grateful to VDW for showing me an intellectually satisfying way of thinking about race analysis, and in that sense regard myself as a VDWer, that is a matter of historical chance – I read VDW first.
Wallace
You ask what does success look like. I suggest the answer lies in terms of reliability and durability. A profit, even at level stakes, is not in itself sufficient – a 33/1 winner will show a decent level stakes profit in a series of 25 bets, even if the only winner, but how realistic is it to get a 33/1 winner in every series of 25 bets?. Nor is a high strike rate sufficient – using RacingSystemBuilder anyone can find systems with sky high strike rates that show no real profit. Success is being able to achieve, year in year out, a reliable proportion of winners from one’s bets, showing a decent profit.
What constitutes decent? Here I would suggest that Marvex helps us more than VDW. In his "Assessment of Form", Marvex detailed the first week’s activity of his first syndicate. Six winning races out of eight – all bets "books" of between 2 and 4 horses – and a profit of around 15%. None of the bets paid more than about 5/6 on. But his argument is that that kind of safe betting is sustainable. Another example he gives is of a professional he knew who bet place only on the Tote. He laid out £300 at one meeting (six bets of £50) and walked away with £106 profit (big money in the late 1940s). His point was that the ordinary punter, perhaps betting 10/- in old money (50p nowadays) following the same strategy would have made just over £1, and would probably not think the effort worthwhile, though the return would have been the same 35% as the professional’s.
