Mtoto

As a further illustration of the role of sfs, consider the 1983 Imperial Cup, won by Desert Hero.

If you accept that, for older Flat and NH horses, VDW used the win-prize-money means of rating ability, contrast two runners: Patrick's Fair (AR 20) and Desert Hero (AR 11).

VDW was explicit that Desert Hero was the class/form horse (and incidentally his last sf was marked lower than his penultimate sf, in a race only one point higher in class). Thus here we have an example of a form horse with regresssive form as indicated by sfs.

By contrast, the clear implication is that the higher ability rated Patrick's Fair was not a form horse: this despite the facts that PF's penultimate sf was 41, his last race sf was 65, admittedly in a race of lower class.

Further, lto DH has run 3rd in a class 13, PF had won a class 38 - both races 2m handicap hurdles.

There is no question but that improving sfs, especially in races of successively higher class, are interesting and suggestive of improving form. But the evidence suggests (to my mind, conclusively) that VDW did not assess in-formness through sfs.

In reply to your observation on Oldtimer's thread; anything that can be discovered by the individual's own efforts is not secret, I agree with you there. There is a lot of shared knowledge on Gummy's board much of which has been discovered by the posters through their own endeavours and creativity. The distinctive feature about those who have put the hard work into researching VDW's writings and the literature relevent to the examples given is an unwillingness to share what they have learned coupled with an insistence on waving their knowledge before the eyes of their readers. This is the only thread, including Sparky219's tipping challenge, that states that it will continue, it's getting more views than ever, and the like, from this I can conclude that the thread's aims would be frustrated if the knowledge of how to employ the method of VDW were to become generally known. As the method is not striking effective in the hands of the threads premier exponent the aims of the thread appear to be personally rather than pragmatically motivated. If this is not the case please state clearly how VDW drew his idiosyncatic conclusions about form.

Epilgotis

I would guess that the majority of those who have a reasonable-to-full grasp of VDW's approach, including how he assessed in-formness, have achieved that by working it out for themselves, through literally hours of study of the relevant texts, examples (and postings on this thread).

Having achieved that reasonable-to-full grasp, and presumably satisfied themselves that the approach continues to work day by day, they might of course wish to give the product of their endeavours to all and sundry, and are free to do so. Alternatively, they may take the view that their interests are better served by not doing that. To date, those in the position of being able to choose have opted for the latter option.

But that has not prevented some - Guest, most notably - from providing hints for those sufficiently interested/diligent to be able to follow them up and learn from them. Guest's preparedness to do that seems to me to have been notably generous and, having benefitted from it, I feel it is appropriate to try to help others seriously seeking to work things out for themselves. But set it all out on a plate for the likes of you, who are not even prepared to obtain and study the basic texts? Not likely!

I'm getting tired of pointing out that the expert implimemtation of the method as demonstrated on this thread is insufficiently impressive to provide any incentive to spend years acquiring and studying a library. The aim of those who began this thread was to understand the workings of VDW, once that understanding is achieved the thread will close just as any other thread does. Those who perpetuate the thread without either adding to the knowledge of the members or posing pertinent questions are at variance with the aims of the thread and of the board in general, there are some members who appear to post on this thread merely to flatter their vanity, this is only possible because of the continuing mystification of the methods, by your posts you are either an example of such a poster or at least actively involved in encouraging such abuse of the forum.

from the very beginning of this thread,Well over a year ago now.There have been many many clues as to the areas that need to be looked at,Personally i have disagreed with some of the selections that have been posted on this thread,But nevertheless i have understood why they were arrived at.The books are an essential part of the operation for obvious reasons.I could never do the full journey because a lot of the form books needed are very hard to come by.Having said that,There has been enough information given on this thread to make a good profit using just the basics,But you do need to read and understand His (vdws) way.

Epiglotis

Whether the approach seems to be worth the undeniable effort required to learn it is a judgement each individual must make for him or herself. Neither I nor, I would suppose, anyone else has the least interest in trying to convince you.

As to whether my posts serve any purpose except to exhibit my own vanity is hardly for me to say, but I've explained why I've made those posts I've have over the last few months (there was, of course, a different purpose earlier).

In truth, I feel I've now thrown in my share of silver (to recall Mr Chambers' phrase), and that the time spent can be used to greater benefit in other ways. So I'll be irritating you and, no doubt, others far less in future. But as we both know, at depth it is your ambivalent attitude to VDW that is causing you the real irritation.

I agree that most of the elements of the theory have been fairly fully discussed and as far as consistency ratings, ability ratings, unspecified-two-extra ratings and place in the tissue go everything has been disagreed on. That's fair enough and to be expected, if we now discuss the reading of form we can finish the investigation, draw our conclusions and move on. Do you remember when 'hidden factors' were all the rage? Barney had 37 or so, at least that nonsense has gone except for one or two posters who seem to need a degree of status that they receive by maintaining an image of superior knowledge on this thread. These people hinder progress because it is against their interests for the thread to conduct open discussion.

It is up to individuals if they want to share the information that is required,I felt exactly the same way as you did when i first came on this thread.The thing is Epi i did something about it,I acquired the books and iv'e now read them several times.Iv'e applied what iv'e found and it does work.You can't expect to pick up on vdw just by looking at the bits and bobs on gummy.

There are lots of profitable threads going on,On this board E.G delboy's van der mail max's 1000 to 5000 in a month,Which i am following myself,B.Bs ratings 5/4 system,The logic behind these threads are all explained to you,And you don't have to buy any books.What i'm basically trying to say is no matter how often you try or how often you come on this thread,Nobody will hand it to you on a plate.As you are probably aware interpretation differs markedly.E.g guest and statajack,Johnd has his way Mtoto has his,We'll never really know who is right and who is wrong,If you get the literature you may see something that also puts you at variance with some of the selections.But until you do get them you'll never know.

That Invester is the best I have seen yet, a balanced reply. Does it matter if some ones ego is inflated by their post as long as it has the grain that may make the difference to understanding or not.

Hi all,
Can I just ask a question here?
Would I be right in assuming that a lot of VDW's success may be down to the races he chose?
Many a time (and I do it myself) I have thought that looking at certain races whether they be the highest class(value) race on the card or not just wouldn't qualify as races he would assess.
He makes the point to F. Chester(I think) about his pecentages in a race and tells him he has gone a long way to working out the method.
F. Chester in his letter also makes the point about percentages saying that they guide you to the races to look at and the races to ignore.
Any one of the same mind?
See you soon, Mike.

I go for small fields over long distances, Mtoto goes for large field sprints, so while there's agreement that there is more to choosing a suitable race than just the prize money the choice of race is also a matter of dispute. Having said that I dont feel that I'm following VDW's example so Mtoto's choice of race would no doubt be closer to those that VDW would've chosen.

Relatively consistent horses can be found in any race,But good consistent horses are mainly in the better class of race.Just follow the selection of races as laid out in the books.

Mickeddy,

I don't know how many times I've tried to think along those lines,but drawn a blank. It's just occured to me.Would you be thinking along the lines of one of his statements where he said something like if it doesn't add up to 80% the punter shouldn't have a bet? Thats not word for word but its something like that.

All,

The way some things have been done here has been very clever,in my opinion.I seem to sense some peoples frustration at the lack of response for all the effort they've put in.Barneys 2/13 had me thinking.Am I not putting in enough effort? I sense an exodus.

EpiG,

It might be worth asking yourself if you could have submitted anywhere near the detail in the recent post that Fulham made re Desert Hero.If the answer is no then I don't think you can comprehend how much effort has been put in to come up with that post, and the facts contained theirin.Therefore ,only in my opinion ,anyone who understands the effort required is likely to treat your posts re VDW with some scepticism.

many thanks for the reply, re, en attendant, i believe in a further letter by jb, he mentioned better offer,decorated hero, dacha, as being further examples of the roushayd method, mg kent alos in a follow up letter mentioned; mark of esteem, dreams end,kutta, amonst others printed in the raceform 1995, using his quality bets method, has anyone checked these races,thanks grundy

many thanks for the reply, re, en attendant, i believe in a further letter by jb, he mentioned better offer,decorated hero, dacha, as being further examples of the roushayd method, mg kent also in a follow up letter mentioned; mark of esteem, dreams end,kutta, amongst others printed in the raceform 1995, using his quality bets method, has anyone checked these races,thanks grundy.

mtoto,could you contact me, many thanks grundy.

Hi Bream,
A good post with reference to Fulham’s “Desert Hero” submission, it just goes to show how much effort some have put into VDW’s methods and the old examples, Fulham and others on the board really have put in the time and effort, and I’m sure they will be rewarded so for there labour.
As in life you do not get any rewards without hard work, whether it be monetary or otherwise !!!!!!!!

Thanks for your comments about my post.Thankfully Gummy has now intervened and hopefully this thread will get back on track,as it appears to be at the moment.

It is irritating when having to trawl through some of the stuff that was posted,perhaps Guest might even return and hopefully Fulham will reconsider his decision.

I have rooted out my copies of the J.Bingham and M.G. Kent letters that you refer to, and recall checking the horses mentioned. As Fulham said, they were based on J.B.'s interpretation of the Roushayd method, the only selection that caused me any problem was Select Few, the others are fairly easy to fathom out.
I don't know if you saw my earlier posting regarding J.B., but I did have some brief contact with him, and to be frank, his pre-race selections were disappointing.
In his letter, M.G.,Kent, also mentioned the horses selected by G.R. of Lincs, and if you are interested, a search of this thread, under that name, will give you his list of horses; which he said at that time, that he arrived at by using the Roushayd/Desert Orchid approach.

johnd, many thanks for your reply, you mentioned they were fairly easy to fathom out,except select few, could you expand on this for me,.. could i possibly still get the form for these horses, using the racing post database,; i think mg kent, mentioned a short cut using ratings did you see this many thanks grundy,

GRUNDY
Briefly, as I am off to bed. All the horses (From memory) had shown significant improvement, when raised in class, in a recent race. The one exception, Select Few, had disappointed lto, but I recall reading glowing gallop reports for this horse in the week preceding this race, and he certainly had the form to win it.
The form for all the horses mentioned is, I am fairly certain, on the R.P. database.