I have an 11 plus pass which is virtually an A level these days and a few GCE 'O' levels which are as good as degrees now.

Any good?

In sytematic betting there were 12 horses mentioned 11of them were in the first 3 in the betting Desert orchid being the odd one out when winning at 16/1 but was consistent nevertheless.

ultimate wheel of fortune There were 29 horses mentioned of which 2 were outside the first 3 Namely Desert Hero and gaye Chance.The plot thickens.

what were yer 'O' levels in?

Maths, English & Engineering Drawing

The fact remains that the first 6 in the betting traps 80+% winners
It is not silly epi
True it covers all number of runners in races even 6 but the fact is it is consistent and is there year in year out
Was known about before VDW
The reason for it is obvious

Tis a pity nobody can take it a step further and select 3 out of those 6 and trap the winner 80% of the time

But they cant

no problem there then, language I presume.

get stuck in.

The first 6 in the betting may involve 8 or 9 horses or more though.

Dog racing has 100% with the first 6 in the betting but it is still very hard to make it pay.

I am struggling to see how knowing this is much help though. You still have find a winner at a value price no matter how many runners there are.

I didn't realise Echoes was the best ability horse in the race, investor.

Looking in the RP again, I see that, indeed, she has the top OR of 106, and,also,she has the top "best RPR" of 123.
Even her adjusted official rating is the highest in the race (117).

Are these factors important to VDWers?

What were the VDW ratings for those top six in the betting?

Ectoo

Surely you cant compare dog racing to horse racing
There is more of the random element

So they tell me

Put it this way

If you took the first 3 in the betting forecast
And selected one of those 3 ,and
were correct 75% of the time when the winner fell in those 3
you would make a big profit
even counting the races where the winner fell outside the first 3 in the betting

I think Ectoo's query about the top six in the betting is probably valid.

Those top six that I put up were taken from the results with returned SPs.

These may not have been known before the race began. Also, Betfair's top six (harder to guage bc there are no records) may have been different.

Just for reference and interest, the RP betting forecast (in the paper) was

Tarakala 9/4

Echoes In Eternity 9/2

Selebela 9/2

Astrocharm 5/1

Bowstring 8/1

Light of Morn and Opera Comique 12/1.

Jib
Despite reports to the contrary, there was no personal sleight intended in my previous post, and I will have no truck with the notion that you are deliberately muddying the waters.
I do however think you are wrong about consistency for a number of reasons.

1/ Consistent horses do win races, and in a ratio that suggests that is foolish to ignore them.
2/ It has been shown recently on this thread, albeit on a limited number of races, in the better class races, consistent form will feature in most of the results.
3/ Despite your assertions that trainers will do their utmost to hide a horses form, it is possible, more often than you are aware, to guage a trainers intentions from the form book, a point VDW himself made clear, and many, many, horses are consistent without it showing in their form figures. Continent is one such horse, and although he had problems last season, and may not be the horse he once was,he is a high class horse, and consistent,when he is fit and has his preferred conditions.
4/ Even without the above considerations, there are many examples of consistent horses who win race after race, such as Mephisto, Sendintank,Take The Stand, Barolo, Jonny Eberneezer, Material Witness, Cold Turkey, and countless others who have won a string of races, yet still pop up at reasonable prices every now and again.
5/ They are a fundament of VDW's method, something he went to elaborate lengths to point out, and although some of his selections weren't in the first 3 for consistency, there is, in every example I have checked, an underlying consistency.
In view of all the above, and my own and others research into races past and present, I will say it again, you are wrong about consistency.

Black Cat
Don't know where you read that I was having a pop at Jib's competence at selecting winners. If you read my post again, you may find that was not an issue.
You also imply that it is his imagination I have a problem with, again you are well wide of the mark. Were it not for the contributions of such as him and Tc keeping this thread going through its darkest days, there would probably be no VDW thread to post on.
What was intended as a light-hearted riposte to Jib's denigration of the method was turned into a vitriolic attack by your interpretation, not mine!

Jd,

I have never felt even the slightest denigration from anything you have posted. You are an honest contributor, someone vital to any honest debate, and as such my respect for your opinions gives me no comfort, (even goes as far as twinges of concern), that your conviction about the consistency rating is so different from my own.

I must say that though that my antagonism to the CR was initially formed at a time when this thread was run by aftertiming elitists and is probably 'coloured' by that experience. I do accept the concept of consistency when a horse gets his ideal conditions, that afterall is one of the foundations of the Donkey Register.

The difference being that I try to trundle it out before the off!

Tc and any other fishermen.

Consider this;
There are 2 pools. Pool A and Pool B.
Pool A contains 44 gold fish, 192 blue fish and 10 eels.
Pool B contains 23 gold fish, 456 blue fish and 27 eels.
The average weight of each gold fish in Pool A is 5.8lb, in Pool B it is 8.9lb.
It cost £1 every time you cast your line into a pool, but you are guaranteed to catch something.
If you catch an eel you will get £1, if you catch a blue fish you will get nothing, if you catch a gold fish you will get the weight of the fish in £’s plus £1.
Which Pool would you fish in?

The answer is obvious. For £246 you can catch everything in Pool A. The weight of all the gold fish in Pool A is 255lb, so you will get £255 plus £44 plus £10 for the eels less £246 gives a profit of £63.

Pool A contains the 3 most consistent horses for July this year in the 67 races I evaluated. As you know from “spells it all out” the 3 most consistent can contain more than 3 horses. The average was 3.67. The maximum was 6, which occurred just once.
The total S.Ps of the 44 winners was just over 255/1.

The ability ratings I gave earlier were from the same 67 races.

I do not expect a profit could have been made in August as we have already seen, the strike rate for the 3 most consistent was well down on normal at about 50%.

Incidentally, I cast my line 5 times in July and caught 5 blue fish. Anybody got any good bait for catching gold fish.

Gf,

Well done! What an excellent didatic example!

I fish out here with a speargun, it keeps you out of the stingrays way, the water is crystal clear and v refreshing, and the really big alligators dont tend to occupy the smaller streams and pools.

However because of my goggles and snorkel I would be quite happy to jump into either of your pools!

Boozer: Imagine there'd been seven horses in Statajack's race and the winner had been "7th favourite" or the race had been a non-handicap, dont they only consider the first five in the forecast in non-handicaps?

Tuppenycat: 50% of 6 is 3 so there is no meaning there either.

Garstonf,

what were your five bets in july?

Morning all
150 don Firebreak looks the one to beat in this race.Has been running in far better class than anything in the race today,Top on ability by a long way and is coming out out of the highest race class lto in group 1 company finishing a very creditable 4th.BUT is not one of the 3 cons.Probably trot up but there you go.

2.25 don Darasim looks the one on recent form.BUT i couldn't confidently rule out Millenary or dancing bay .

3.25 ep Peter Paul Reubens Has all the ticks in the right boxes and under normal circumstances i would back this horse.All 4 wins over the distance and all 4 on gd gd/fm Had a good s/f of 94 lto in class 123 so is clearly on the boil.And is the c/f in this race,BUT and i think this is the mistake i made with Russian Valour,He is a 3yold taking on older horses.I haven't looked to closely at examples where 3 yolds have taken on older horses.But like i say he looks nailed on,If it was a 3 yold race i would have no hesitation but not today

Too many BUT's for me,BUT i'll be watching with interest.Good luck to those who dip there fingers.

It looks highly likely that dettori and Godolphin could be in for a good day again.