JennyK
Mare
Tufnelre horses dropping in class, I've been checking through the VDW examples and mostly the drops, in win prize money terms, are quite evident, exceptions being Merce Cunningham and Abathatc (1988). In my experience with lower class sprint handicaps, which are likely to be my main fare from now until next April, this is not always the case, however, and I suspect that may also apply to some of the handicap hurdle races you consider.
In this context G Garry's post, number 305 on this thread, had me revisiting some examples and I think both you and he are right. You are right that VDW never referred explicitly to ORs, but Garry is right when he suggests he did by proxy, as it were, for example with Canny Danny. It is, I think, unlikely that VDW knew the runners exact ORs in that race, but he did know that when horses like West Tip were running from out of the handicap they were running to a numerically precise disadvantage in OR terms. And that, coupled with what seems in those days to be quite common general weight rises for individual races, illuminate several VDW examples.
By the time of the six best bet/next best examples, VDW would of course have known the exact ORs of runners and I think that gave him another measure of race class, possibly the simple one I use, the average OR of the field. (I suspect that is more likely than some of the seemingly more "sophisticated" approaches such as using the median rather than the mean, or applying the measure to a subset of the field, as it seems to me all VDW's methods of rating were simple in conception if not always in practice.)
If we take one of the six, Valiant Warrior, he was going up in class slightly (win prize money basis) for the race on 17/02/96 when VDW claims to have selected him, but comparing the two races on an average OR of field basis tells a very different story.
We know that VDW took the view that the class of the race was not the same as the class of the runners, and once the ORs were readily available he had them as a possible additional (and maybe better) way of thinking about the latter to those he seemed to have used previously.
One thing I have yet to find out it when ORs became publicly available. The Superform annuals included them much earlier than the Raceform Form Books, and they must have got them from somewhere, but when they were able to get them and where from I don't yet know. VDW-wise, I think it is probably safe to assume he didn't use them as such in his analyses to 1989, but likely did for the 1995/6 examples. If however it becomes apparent that ORs were readily available much earlier than I now think, that assumption will need revisiting.
If you have another look at Valiant Warrior, a chase I realise, it may perhaps nevertheless help with your HH work, in judging how confident one can be that a horse is dropping in class. Incidentally, if you revisit the 1995/6 examples, don't forget the general increase in ORs introduced from 07/10/95 - one of my posts on page 7 of the Sorting Out A Card thread.
Over the last few days I've not been looking much as current races because I've wanted to check out my idea that revisiting the VDW examples from the Consistent Form + Ability + Capability + Probability perspective, in terms of the order to take things, might be helpful. My increasingly strong conclusion is that it is, and helps with the really tricky VDW examples, which are not just the ones sometimes discussed as such on forums, Gummy or here. (For example, the three Cheltenham Festival 1981 bets pose problems which need to be addressed.)
Among the other VDW examples I've been reviewing is Philodantes, and I think race 1048 (06/06/79) provides for me the final piece in understanding it, and more generally helps a bit with sorting out what VDW referred to as the "tricky" ones from the "sore thumb" examples.
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