Hi Fulham,

As I’ve already stated I am, in comparison to ‘guest’, only a novice when it comes to VDW, and racing for that matter, and I know that what I am achieving is far from what is attainable with further hard work and knowledge. That said I am doing nicely and far better than I’d ever have thought possible in this game.

Like VDW suggested there are situations almost EVERY day where we are able to narrow the field down to two, or three horses, and indeed where the prices allow four horses, but the work still needs to be done in order to protect ourselves from the many pitfalls that lurk in waiting, and temperament should be at the forefront of our minds even when adopting this method of betting. I still make mistakes but I learn from them, which is important.

Likewise there are also many ‘single’ bets to be had using the main method that VDW put forward. It seems not so many during the NH season for obvious reasons but from what I made of things towards the end of the last Flat season, when I first started to see things clearer, there were a host of good things, on a daily basis almost. Price wise, there will be many short price bets that are worth supporting, but quite often they will start at far more generous prices than there chances suggest, and 85%ish of the time one will be proved right.

It should be remember that with a strike rate of 80% and above a good profit at the shorter end of the market is easily attainable without being greedy.

My aim now is to carry on and research further the other methods that VDW shared with us, as it is here where it appears that the bigger price winners come from, namely the Travado’s, Rivage Bleu’s and indeed Prominent King. Basically, I will not settle until I understand all examples that were given, which I realise is not for everyone but it wouldn’t do if we were all the same!

Hope this helps.

TS.

i would say a perfect specimen

TS

Thanks. And good luck with your further researches.

Hello all,

Fulham - do you remember a while back I asked about the significance of odds in previous races? You made a comment, that I thought was a hint, that the odds indicated the stables opinion of the final result.

Well, I contacted 0dd5 to get some data to check this and they have kindly done the work for me. The results clearly show that SP position is a good indicator of final position in the race. The 2nd favourite is most likely to come second, the third 3rd and so on.

The work even backs up VDW's suggestion for those starting out to concentrate on first and second favourites as favourites are most likely to win and second favourites have an equal chance of winning or coming second.

0dd5 have done a brilliant job!

Here's the address if anybody wants a look.

http://www.0dd5.com/hrsplace.shtml

What do you think Fulham?

All the best
hedgehog

Hi Hedgehog

I've seen the graphs, and they are as one would expect.

To my mind, there has never been the slightest doubt that the majority of winners come from the shorter end of the betting forecast, and my work to date (still a very long way to go) suggests that VDW seldom, if ever, selected horses outside the first five or six in the betting forecast. (I say "if ever" because, while its certain that he selected some horses not in the first five or six in the Sporting Life forecast, he has referred to other forecasts, eg in the context of Strombolus.)

For me, the more interesting question is whether one can properly infer anything about trainers' expectations from the betting, and in that connection the thread about Mr Newcombe seems relevant.

In my post of 7.43am on 31/1, I laid out some of the evidence re Prominent King. I think that the assumptions I drew are clearly reasonable ones, but that doesn't, of course, mean that in that case they were the right ones. And, frankly, I don't see any way of finding out through statistical analysis. Only "connections" would know, and we are unlikely ever to find out the truth in case of the historical examples.

Anythoughts on Marlboroughs chances in the
3.40 at Newbury.

Maggsy

Hello Maggsy,

I prefer Whats Up Boys. I think odds of better than 9-4 are good. Though its a close thing with Marlborough, will it be race fit?

We'll all know 3.45!

All the best
hedgehog

why on earth was this horse 13/2 phewey...

where will this horse be placed to take advantage of that excellent run.I will watch out for him over the next couple of weeks.

Barney

As regards Rooster Booster, don't hold your breath. He's had several of these decent seconds in good class races (won nearly £50,000 in place money), but never seems to be placed to advantage, presumably because although he doesn't win the handicapper keeps topping him up because of the place form. If he was dropped significantly in class he'd have to hump an enormous weight.

He'd been dropped 4lb since November to today's 138, but is now likely to be raised 2 or 3lb, and so it becomes a vicious circle. He certainly "deserves" a win record of more than one D grade maiden hurdle at Taunton.

he seems a bit like the french furze then.
50,000 is not to be sniffed at.

Having just had a read through the latest posts, etc and Gummys home page, I notice the message board will be restricted to subscribers only as from Monday. Not a good idea in my view, but I'm sure Gummy does have costs that need covering. Nevertheless I personally think it will prove counter productive in the long run to the memberships overall knowledge. The question has to be asked, why should any existing or potential new members pay to read the ideas and views on racing of others that had offered them freely in the first place?

This is just a final posting to what is undoubtedly the most popular thread, certainly according to the view counter, to say I have enjoyed the general discussions on the VDW thread and I hope my own contributions have proved interesting if not useful to some.

It was never my intent to reveal all I have learned about VDWs methods, after many years study and research, but I don't feel comfortable with the proposed new arena and I won't be joining any such type of setup. Whilst I respect Gummys decision, I am not going to pay for the priviledge of offering free advice or ideas.

Good luck to all.

Guest

Thank You Guest
Good Luck for the future, though I don`t think your going to need it.
Many Thanks
RGM Geoff

Dear Guest,
Well, that's a shame then , I won't half miss all your free advice and ideas. I would say your free advice and ideas got us absolutely loads of winners, like, erm, wait a minute, I will think of some in a minute,.......er, Hold on I am still thinking.......... There was that......?
Oh I remember now it was.....?
Hey it will come to me in a minute.....it was....
Sorry Guest, my mind's gone, I just can't remember. It was great free advice though, whatever it was,
Swish

Guest and others
Membership is free, at least until December, for those registering today. As there is no requirement to post any personal details on one's profile I dont understand the persistent reluctance to join.

I thought Rooster Booster was the value yesterday especially having a racing weight for the first time in ages. Looking at the form book afterwards which is so easy I now know there was no way RB could reverse the form with Copeland.

Copeland was 8 IIBs well in on future hcaps plus he was carrying 7 IIbs less than his last run therefore one could say his was well in.

Added to that he was in the top 3 for consistency, 2nd on ability. Surely he was one of the 2 class/form horses.

The other class/form horse had to be Marble Arch but I was convinced this one could not win, ie - up 10 ILBs for his last win and carrying 10 ILBs more then his last run. Surely he couldn`t find 20ILBS improvement ?

*** any comments on the class/form horses ? Was my reading of the 2 reasonable ( albei after the event ) ?

NB - I agree with Fulham, RB will always run his race in these big hcaps but I feel he`ll always remain the `bridesmaid`.

Regards,

Mark.

mark

in my opinion when you put it like that none of the experts are going to tell you if your right or wrong.If you can compare yesterdays result to a race 10 or 20 years ago they will help.

legal set was also another very good thing.

To guest and other contributors who feel they cant join the membership(for free), thanks for you help all along,it must be difficult trying to show those of us that cannot see.

its one of the frustrating things about the internet that you never meet the people who guide you to say thanks and you could be walking past them on the course and not know.Is there a secret vdw sign??

[This message was edited by Barney on February 10, 2002 at 08:24 AM.]

Guest

Thanks for your help over the last few months.

With what amounts effectively to the demise of the Methodology Group, two or three of us are exploring the VDW historical examples in a more private forum. If you would be interested in seeing what we've made of the first few, and if you think the efforts are serious enough to justify it, we'd warmly welcome any comments you'd care to make from your perspective of having been down that road.

With the ease of opening Hotmail and other accounts there would, of course, be no need for you to compromise your identity.

If this would be of any interest to you, please email me.

fulham

re the methodology group

i think they may have sussed it out and sodded off to make money instead of talk about it.

Barney

A possibility, but not, I think, one with any significant probability.

The Methodology Group was an excellent initiative (not mine), and for some months was lively and reasonably productive, and hopefully could yet be so again. But it suffered from two problems:

a) a relatively high proportion of non-contributors (or "lurkers" as the board's proprietor termed them): people content to take but without any willingness to contribute. (Probably an endemic problem with reasonably open access boards: I note from the January statistics here than less than half the registered members posted during the month);

b) what I now see as an unfortunate, inappropriate and unnecessary clash between those who took the view that the way to learn was primarily from patient study of VDW's examples, and those who were more inclined to the view that the emphasise should be on pre-"off" discussion of current races. Alas, I have to admit that during those discussions I was one who took the latter position, which I now recognise to have been misconceived, and thus share responsibility for creating one of the circumstances which has led to that Group's present state.

A third factor has since added to the problems of the Meth. Group - a member has been posting material from that Group here without proper attribution of its origin, posting here under the user-name "Marchwood". That kind of thing simply diminishes trust.

Hence the need for some re-thinking, and what might be thought of as sub-Meth. Group initiatives, such as the little "historical examples" one.