Tufnel
Leodis
On my ratings, the form horses are :
Yes, I've looked at the 4.45 and have emailed my racing pal that, at the moment, it looks too difficult.
I am pondering it further, but currently I am not sure which horse is the class/form horse and I am not sure I'll be any clearer later.
It is tempting to think Toca Madera is the class/form horse. Second on ability and most certainly a VDW "form" horse. But whether he is a consistent class/form horse is another matter. I am not sure about that and I don't think VDW would be, either. He might have made a better judgement on the issue than me, but it would still be a judgement and one a precedent for which among his selections does not immediately come to mind.
Gold Star Hero |
Baker Blue |
Toca Madera |
True on the "certainties" or "outstanding bets" but it's true he also used a range of such labels across the many examples given. He often said "good thing" which to most people's minds would infer he considers a good prospect though not always backable as he cautioned with One A Milllion who was referred to as a "good thing but not at the price".
I may be incorrect in thinking G Garry's interpretation of the HH examples is right, but I am certainly correct in thinking that VDW wrote nothing to suggest the six winners were bets or, as he sometimes described selections, "certainties" or "outstanding bets". Hence they don't form part of my "bets etc" subset for study relating to the <20% criteria.
It is probably me, but I am not sure you are researching the right issues with key horse form.
The [Roushayd type] selection needs to be a consistent class/form horse now dropping in class, and the key horse issue is whether in the selection's last race key horse (the second if he was a winner lto, otherwise as with Roushayd the winner), finished within the first three on its prior run (ie the race before he was the key horse in the selection's last race) AND was it in the first three of the returned betting for that race.
Those four requirements are tightly drawn. Three are plainly objective (give or take a view at the margin as to what constitutes a drop in class) but the first is much less so - you will have noted for example the differences between G Garry, you and me about the "form" and not "form" horses in the 18 Boxing Day 1986 races.
I expect that horses that met all four criteria are within your large data sets but unless I've missed something they comprise a subset which is not identified within them. It is the data from that subset that is theoretically of interest.
Tufnel
In the Pegwell Bay letter VDW commented on the result with "The result makes it appear he is capable of winning again before long."
JennyK but to my reading of "a string of good things" I think it's safe to say they were all horses VDW was prepared to wager on. First Division, Merce Cunningham and Billet were certainly not described as good things by VDW hence as he said they didn't have him reaching for his wallet.
Tufnel, I was referring solely to his entitlement to consistent class/form status in the Mackeson.
Leodis and I reached similar conclusions about not betting on the race, though for different reasons.
The way in which VDW laid out each of the races in Roushayd’s 1988 season was the full finishing order but showing previous run of each runner in a simple class, distance and finishing position format. It presented an overview of where each runner had come from. Similar to how he laid out Pegwell Bay’s race before it took place so in race card order but also showing class and distance for each runner’s last 3 races and finishing positions left in the last 6 form placings in the traditional racecard manner.Re Pegwell Bay,
re "good things" not backed, Kenlis is to my mind the most important.
re the logic of Lee's observation about key horses with class droppers, it may seem overly simplistic but I think it has the same basic "common sense" as VDW's penchant for winners lto when considering risers.
With risers, ie horses going up in class as VDW saw it via the win prize money value, VDW's common sense view seemed to be why should horse who can't win a class X be expected to win a class X+ next time out? VDW knew there were convincing reasons why some horses would indeed do just that, and we learn some of them from his writing and others from his examples. But as a basic proposition it makes sense to me.
With droppers, they are tackling lower class races, again on win prize money terms, than their most recent ones. Roushayd, beaten around 9.5l in a class 227 and now running in a class 170 is the obvious example. How do we know that he, or any other class dropper, is likely to win? First by his performance in the most recent race and second by whether that race was a good one, which for VDW seems to have meant being won by a horse among those the market expected would win it. Obviously not infallible, but makes sense to me and although in current races it means one misses the occasional winner, time and again it keeps one off losers, Gold Star Hero in the Catterick Dash being just the latest.
Easily the most interesting race of the week, given my focus on sprint handicaps, but I couldn't even sort out the class/form horse. Mainly because I could not decide whether Toca Madera was a consistent horse in VDW's terms, but also because all the other possibilities were, from my take on VDW, also flawed:
Gold Star Hero, for the key horse reason, as per my pre-race post,
Baker Blue not in my view a consistent horse, though like Toca Madera, not easy to assess with certainty,
Ziggys Triton a consistent "form" horse but likely to be outclassed yesterday,
Lexington Blitz, a horse with "less obvious form", but whom I [wrongly] thought would struggle off 94.
When looking at each, as always VDW's words "no element of a gamble should be allowed to creep in" form the context (though, as with many of his words, that advice should not be taken literally, but as he intended them).
Tufnel 