In a way,
T
Tufnel, your bets yesterday in my view typify a problem to which VDW referred in one of his articles less familiar to those who have given his work the time of day than the often discussed Prominent King, Little Owl and co, Righthand Man, Roushayd and Nomadic Way ones.
I am referring to a paragraph in his 18/01/86 article entitled, presumably by Tony Peach, "The VDW Approach, in "The Ultimate Wheil of Fortune":
"Something which I have never been able to understand is that most punters seem to believe they must wager on everything they think should win. I would estimate that I wager on less than 20 per cent of horses I consider potential winners. There is a reason, a very good reason for this and it is all to do with temperament. That particular ingredient is the hardest to acquire, the most easily lost and ironically the most important of all."
VDW wrote "I consider potential winners", not "class/form horses", but given his work as a whole it is entirely reasonable to believe that he was referring to "class/form" horses which he had previously described as "the one most likely to win and ... to bet against it pushes the odds away from you."
For quite a long time I thought the issue with VDW's work which confounded most was form. Indeed, VDW had written "I believe it is the question of form that causes some who have tried to follow my methods the most problems". While that is indeed an issue, it is one that, as far as I can judge, Guest and Lee from the Gummy forum largely solved, as indeed I believe I have. Now, though, I think it is not the matter of form, necessary of course to sort out if one is to identify the VDW "class/form" horse, that is the main obstacle to achieving the kind of strike rate VDW claimed and Lee, admittedly over a small number of examples, proved with pre-race postings. Rather, it is sorting out the <20% of class/form horses which should be backed from the >80% that should be left.
I don't pretend to have overcome that obstacle, but I think I have found some of the indicators that specific class/form horses should be left. Needless to say, some go on and win, which tends to undermine one's resolve, but in general I would rather miss a winner than back a loser.
We are all, I suspect, prone to the problem to which
BC referred, to greater or lesser extents. My way of handling it, when I get to the point of feeling that I shouldn't back this class/form horse but I'll be miserable if it goes on to win (and it is usually when the horse concerned is at double figure odds), is to have a dabble rather than a bet, ie a very small bet, only a fraction of what I bet on solid class/form horses. It reflects a continuing shortcoming in temperament on my part, but the financial cost is small (and very occasionally one wins!) but for me at least it saves the evening of dispondency if I don't and it wins. Not that I dabble that often; may be once a week. This week I could not resist Adrestia but easily resisted Bunyola Bay yesterday as I will the VDW class/form horse on
"exposed form" in the Stewards. That is not to say that Northern Champion is the VDW class/form horse, because in a race of this class there is often
"less obvious form" to consider as well; my next task today.
