Bream
Well, let me try to solve the puzzle for you.
Forget VDW 101, and the belief that it can be done simply by adding a few placings and dividing win prize money by races won.
Take seriously VDW's underlying proposition that to find the good things we need to focus on and balance three things - class, form and what he referred to as "the other factors" but I think of conditions.
Class. On 30/09/22, as a 4yo,
mick's selection won a class 103 handicap with an average OR of 85.3. It was a 15 runner at Ascot, and almost by definition a decent race, and he won it convincingly, by 2.3l, running on well. Today the prize money was a bit more, 155, but the field was of much the same strength, average OR 85.8. As a mid-year 5yo, one would hope the horse would be capable of improving on his best 4yo performance but it would be an unusual one indeed who was already regressive, so winning an 85.8 off the same mark as he won the 85.3 was entirely realistic. (One could add that thus far in his 5yo career Final Watch has not in fact shown that he is likely to be very progressive, but there is still time.)
Other factors. The main ones were I think for VDW trip, going, course type and weight. All but one of FW's wins and close finishes have been over 7f, today's trip. He has won on good, good/soft and soft and never run on good/firm. That suggests connections may think good/firm won't suit. It may, but there is a questionmark, hence Mick's hope for rain. Today's going was fine for FW. Every one of FW's wins and close finishes have been on tough tracks, mainly Newmarket but once Ascot. On an easy track he has yet to finish within 2l of the winner. This suggests that, comparatively, he is is strong and determined but not fast. Newmarket again for him today, so pefect. As to weight, he has won with 10.08 (the 30/09/22 race) so today's 9.12 was well within what he had proved he could carry.
Form (which I have taken out of order for a reason which I hope will be clear). This is a matter of one's personal judgement but for me, despite his second lto, FW did not have what VDW called "exposed form". I possibly use a tighter benchmark than some, but a horse beaten by much more than a length in a sprint or 7f race doesn't trigger the "obvious form" marker coded into my Excel book. But might he have what VDW termed "less obvious form?"
Having noted that FW is best over 7f, on good or softer going and on a tough course, how does he look if we isolate the races where he had those conditions? Before today there were seven, and in the two highest class of these (on 18 April and 5 May this year) he had failed to make the frame. The two had average ORs of 91.2 and 96.6, which suggests that at the moment those are too high a class for him to win. The remaining five all had average ORs in the range 70.2 to 86.7 on a rising curve, which suggested that today's 85.8 was within his current range.
Of those five, he had won three, with average ORs of 70.2 (14/05/21), 76.1 (19/06/21) and 85.3 (30/09/22). He came 2nd on 31/07/21, beaten half a length by the favourite in a race of average OR 82.2, who was put up 6lb for the win and won in much higher class next time out, (93.4) and again the time after that, so a good run beaten by a better horse. He also came 2nd last time out, beaten 1.8l, in a race where the average OR was 86.7 and in which he might have been expected to have done better, but he didn't get a good start and although he kept going, could not get near the winner. Overall, in races of appropriate class and conditions his record was 1/1/2/1/2 which by anybody's standards is highly consistent.
I think this is an example of what VDW meant by "less obvious form". Unless one was conscious of the kind of factors VDW highlighted in his discussion of Roushayd, (the version in "Racing In My System" by Tony Peach is marginally more helpful than that in "Systematic Betting"), one wouldn't necessarily have viewed FW as a form horse.
In sum, in FW today we had a horse proven to have the class for the race concerned, with perfect conditions and very consistent form in appropriate class in those conditions. That makes him highly plausible as the potential winner, though of course one would also need to evaluate similarly all his rivals before deciding whether he was out there on his own, or whether there might be one or more other runners with even stronger claims.
VDW 101ers would not have selected FW, for although he met the position in the betting forecast criterion, he wasn't one of the three or four lowest on consistency totals (I've no idea how he ranked on the AR). But if finding winners was as easy as the tables in the "Spells It All Out" article suggest, I doubt there would have been any bookmakers - for horse racing at least - by about the end of 1983.
Re the Saher example taking the 5 most consistent in the whole race, and from these the 3 highest on ability another variation on the theme and i guess the trick might be to know which one to use for each race and best of with that. !
