roushayd won by a hd. I thought by all the talk it won pulling a cart. it also never won again. why is it such a good example?

Mtoto
This is why we have to study the form of all concerned.O.kThe ability rating is a guide.

Investor,

A slight difference is it wasn't until after this rating was introduced that we received this instruction. In the first example he says he rated five horses, in a later letter he said he rated the relevant horses. The message changed after the introduction, why?

Seanrua,

Can I ask what you understand the word ability to mean? Looking in my dictionary I can't see the word is being used in the wrong sense.

Ability, the quality that makes a process or action possible, the capacity or power to do something. Talent.

Be Lucky

Mtoto
i'm not going to keep going over old stuff,You need to look again at the examples using the pegwell bay evaluation.it is pointless carrying on mate,All you do is argue the toss all the time,Guest has more or less handed it on a plate i have tried to give my twopeneth,I never had been a good advert for explaining things as i have said in the past.It has been like this for over 3 years now mtoto.Youv'e got to look at it through vdw's eyes and not your own.Well done with the prince by the way.

We were talking about " ability":
Investor said:

"Don't forget that it is based on wins.So it can win one race then go through the rest of it's carreer and never win again.But the rating will still stay the same,It is FORM that goes up and down not the ability of the horse,Some horses rise gently others sharply but the rating never goes backwards does it."
-------------

Obviously, I haven't a clue what VDW means by a/r, but I can say that " ratings" means some kind of measure against a "yardstick" or standard".

This is done by those who want to compare two or more measurable qualities and by those who want to monitor improvement or regression.

If there were to be no change ever, ie. everything is static and constant, no fker in the world would bother with measurement; things would be done once, and that would be it for ever.

Of course, in the real world that would be classed as absolute bollocks!

Tony Mcoy wins a donkey derby at age eight; some bastard puts a figure to it, and that's his rating for life - unwavering and unchanging!

Pele gets rated 9/10 for ability, age eight, playing in the Sao Paulo Sunday shantytown league, and that's his rating for life.

This a/r stays the same in every World Cup he plays in , right up until tomorrow when he turns out for the Celebrities v Dr Barnados.

Some of the ex pros come along in wheelchairs to play, but their ratings remains the same.

Desert Orchid looks over the hedge and laughs his cock off ( don't think he's got any balls).
He sees that he's still got the same a/r he was given when he won his first race!

Something is surely amiss here? I thought John Major had retired!
What a fkin joke! You cannot be serious!

Ability stays constant, but form ( short for performance) goes up and fkin down!!
Oh dear oh fkin dear!

Show me the way to Portman Park or Steepledowns, as my ability to comprehend this sort of stuff is virtually sub- zero, so I guess I must be completely a/r se backward.

"Ability, the quality that makes a process or action possible, the capacity or power to do something. Talent."

I accept your dictionary's definition, Mtoto, without quibble.

If you look see what it says about " Achievement", I think you'd probably agree, that in many of today's examples, " achievement" would be a more appropriate word than "ability* .

Anyway, so long as you can understand what VDW means, enough to turn a tidy profit, I'm quite happy.

I'm too old and tired ,myself, to want to relearn English; it was hard enough first time round, and I need a bit of time, nowadays, to study "form"!

Get Lucky, stay lucky!

I agree with whay you say Sean
But
Say a horse wins a 40k race at 2yo
It then wins a race 6k 6 months later
That is reasonably acceptable as the AR is diluted by the 6k win
If the horse doesnt win another race till he's much older Then the races in between are a problem re the high rating produced from the 40k win
Seems better to judge a horse on the form he is showing now in the class of races hes running in now

If that is the case whats the point of the AR anyway

I don't know, Boozer. It's difficult.

So far, your idea (similar to my mate's)- that horses who have been running in £20K races have a good chance when dropped into under £10K races- is one of the most useful I've managed to glean from this thread.

I also like to see Newmarket, Epsom, Newbury and Goodwood in the past race venues.

One thing that is holding up better than iI everimagined is "top three OR".

It'll be interesting to see what beat my selections when I tally up after the forty days ( in the fkin wilderness).

Quote from The Golden Years

"Ability cannot eventually fade, this is tantermount (sic) to
saying a horse's victory will in due course be regarded as a second and so on
down until eventually it will be established as never to have been in the race at
all."
Surely this has nothing to do with dictionary definitions, but illustrates VDW's view of ability (Class)..
Had he said that Ali couldn't box, McEnroe couldn't play tennis, and that Coe couldn't run, that would be a reflection of their current form, but totally ignore their previous class?

"Ability, the quality that makes a process or action possible, the capacity or power to do something. Talent."
As a definition is accepted by everyone, yes? According to VDW the horse has the same "ability" even if you cut it's legs off, even if it's dead, this is clearly incompatible with the definition.

Sean

What do you mean the top 3 OR's
If you give me the criteria I may be able to give you a full seasons results

Seanrua
You made me laugh bigtime with your last 2 posts,But for all the right reasons,I have seen horse that have won a 20 grand race.So that gi hem an a/r of 200 and then they just seem to drop away.That doesn't mean that eventually the rating will be seen as the horse never even ran in the race.It's the horses form that declines but the abilty RATING will still be 200.It may go a season and show absolutely bugger all but the next season it might come out and sluice in in a 50 and handicap.It happens sean.Then is the time to take note of what is done with horse,And that is why the ability RATINGS have to be done to show wether a particular horse is over compensated or not.

Seanrua
You say you don't know anything about vdw's ability rating,Here's an example for today.

SAMSAAN..Has won total prize money of 7,828 and has been in the winners enclosure twice.So we divide the 7,828 by 2 which gives the horse an ab rating of 39.Which obviously means the horse has averaged 3,914 per win.So to re cap all you do is divide the wins by total prize money WON.That's important,Don't use place money.

Seanrua
I want to try and make you understand a little better.So let's use our horse that has won 20 grand and run once which gives it 's ability RATING of 200,In it's very next race it is dropped in to just for arguments sake a 6 grand race and finishes 9 of 12 beaten 9lgs.Then it is upped in class again to a 15 grand handicap.Now i for one wouldn't touch a horse like that with a bargepole.But it still as an ability rating of 200 and in the 15 grand handicap i'm pretty sure that a horse like this wouldn't even come into the equation.But all the horses have to be looked at from this perspective,But it is a guide or benchmark/Yardstick as you put it.So to re itereate it isn't the horses rating that has changed it's the form that is now suspect.

Thank you, Investor.

Yes I know about that Win Prize Money/Number of Wins, from having bought Robin Lloyds' floppy disc software and from having "aquired" Propunter, years ago.

In fact, that was the only reason I bought my first computer; couldn't drive it, i had to get my kids or others to get it going.

Used to take me fkin ages squnting at the figures in the RP and trying to tap 'em in.

Mostly a fk up, but it made me realise what factors were considered important by the " experts".

Now, though I cannot accept the use of the word "ability" in place of " achievement", I do feel that running in and winning high value races is an important pointer -

( you saw Boozer's figures re the £20 droppers; and Ectoo's post about " Earnings per Race" - the American idea taken up by whoever wrote the VDW stuff).

Anyway, back to the present: that Samsaan has been tipped by Aceishigh (to place) - so maybe that's a good sign for us all!

Hi Boozer,

All I mean by top OR is what I see given in the RP.

If it's a hcp race you can see them in the " Ratings Boxes" in the column titled " Today Future".

Rightly or wrongly, I take this figure to be the Official Rating.
For years I ignored it, but now I'm finding that so many of the winners come from the top three ( ie the highest numbers - there can be several, which is a bastard), so I always check them out nowadays.

Even when I feel that some of these must be " has beens", I often get a surprise when one of them wins; happened yesterday with Massif Centrale.

For me, this seems a better " field reducer" than betting forecast, but this may be because I like big prices.

Today, you can see what I've done in the " VDW Race of the Day".

In these non-hcps, I have to look inside at all the written form to find the OR. Personally, I stick with the unadjusted; seems to work in these stake races, even though people tell me it's bollocks.

Anyway, have a look back at all the post-mortems on my selections. You'll see the winners mostly came from the top ORs.

Seanrua
I looked hard at the horse,It's giving 15lb to the next in the handicap.It could nick this but at 6/4 r/p not for me.

"Had he said that Ali couldn't box, McEnroe couldn't play tennis, and that Coe couldn't run, that would be a reflection of their current form, but totally ignore their previous class?": johnd.

I don't know what VDW has said, John, except for what I read on here.

The statement that was quoted is clearly wrong to my way of understanding. He should have said that past achievement doesn't become devalued, just because our/any ability to reproduce it may not have been retained.

That's just the way I see things, and as I've been around since before the middle of the last century I don't suppose I'll see things much differently from now on.

However, as I've said before, let those who believe, believe. It's always the best way, and it's no skin off my nose.

Tuesday, October 12.

The VDW Race of the Day;

250 Leicester, £6K C2, Fillies Cond Stks, 1m.

Again, a terrible race for punters, imo, but it's the qualifier for today, so I make it a close thing, with my selection being the fav

MANSFIELD PARK

with COQUETERIA a close second.

I'll be doing some kind of combination; those two with Silk Fan. Prices are a bit tight for my liking, but this race is almost a selection on the " Stale Crust and Dripping" thread, so I have to consider it.

Result , 9 October.

VDW race:

Selection, MANSFIELD PARK won by 5 lengths, 4/9fav.

2nd choice, COQUETERIA, 2nd at 15/2.

Winner and 2nd both top OR, 102.

MP had the highest RPR in the race, and the best latest Topspeed.

On the money, these two were outstanding with C actually a bit better than MP:

C had come 3rd in a £80K race and 2nd in a £17K.
MP had come 3rd in a £17K.

No flat race qualifies as a VDW race today.

The nearest thing to it is the 400, Lingfield, but this is for 2yo.

Charlie Anderson said, " ignore 2yo".