Among his 100+ examples VDW included no less than three Lincoln winners: Fair Season (1979), Kings Ride (1980) and Saher (1981). Only the first would have been readily found by the method he demonstrated in his key March 1981 article, but he did emphasise that that method was only part of his repertoire.
Starting with the basic March 1981 method, rating the field (currently 21 runners) for ability produces the following ranking, highest to lowest:
Advanced
Smokey Oakey
Extraterrestrial
Vitznau
Lang Shining
Viva Vettori
Reve De Nuit
Dubai's Touch
Collateral Damage
Albaqaa
Mister Hardy
Huzzah
Ishetoo
Mia's Boy
Harrison George
Prime Exhibit
Mull Of Killough
Full Toss
Tiger Reigns
Penitent
Kaolak
The Post's betting forecast gives the first six and equals in the betting as:
3/1 Penitent, 10/1 Mull of Killough, 12/1 Huzzah, Prime Exhibit, Tiger Reigns, 14/1 Albaqaa, Extraterrestrial, Mia's Boy.
The next step is to take the horses from the first six and equals with the three lowest consistency totals, and they are:
05 Mia's Boy, Penitent
06 Tiger Reigns
08 Albaqaa.
Sometimes VDW added to these "automatic" consistent horses others with one of the lowest five consistency totals in the field. In this case these possibles include Mull of Killough (12) and Prime Exhibit (11) from within the first six and equals of the forecast and Collateral Damage (5), Viva Vettori (11) and Harrison George (12) from further down the forecast. One has to try to discover VDW's rules for those possible extra consistent horses from his examples. Those for horses within the first six of the forecast are relatively easy to discover and neither Mull of Killough nor Prime Exhibit qualifies. The rules for horses outside the first six are in my view less easy to establish: I am confident that Viva Vettori and Harrison George don't qualify but Collateral Damage might. Personally I am going to leave Collateral Damage out, and stay with just the four "automatic" consistent horses, but I am not certain that it the decision VDW would have made.
When VDW had more than three consistent horses, he applied a device, used but not explained in his analysis of the 1978 Erin (item 8 of "The Golden Years of Van Der Wheil"), to try to reduce them to just three "probables" (in that example he did so by the elimination of Decent Fellow). Applying the device to this race, Tiger Reigns is eliminated and Albaqaa, Mia's Boy and Penitent are the probables. It is worth noting that if the right decision, methodologically speaking, is to regard Collateral Damage as a consistent horse, applying the Erin device to the then five consistent horses would produce three probables, but different ones! Instead of Albaqaa, Collateral Damage would have been a probable, along with Mia's Boy and Penitent. Unfortunately some issues cannot be discovered with certainty from VDW's writings and examples - at least I haven't been able to - and being able to be sure about horses like Collateral Damage is one of them
Here things become difficult. We have three probables:
Albaqaa, Mia's Boy and Penitent,
and the top four on the ability rating:
Advanced, Smokey Oakey, Extraterrestrial and Vitznau
and no horse in both lists. And this remains true if we take the 5th ranking on ability (Lang Shining) as there is evidence that sometimes VDW went down as far as the fifth ranked horse for his bet (eg his well known example of Pegwell Bay).
So there is no clear bet in the race using the basic method, but that doesn't mean there is no class/form horse (the horse most likely to win, even if not judged strong enough to be a bet). For VDW the class/form horse was the probable with form with the best balance of form and class.
Of the three probables all, I think, are probables with form. In terms of the balance of form and class:
Albaqaa's AR is 101, Mia's Boy's 80 and Penitent's 50 (and the order not changed by applying the alternative, time-based means of rating VDW suggested)
In terms of form:
Albaqua's last run was 3rd in class 312, Mia's Boy's 2nd in class 227, and Penitent's 2nd in class 123, and in my view that order remains unchallenged when one considers the class of the opposition as well as the class of the races.
So Albaqaa comes out best of the three on both class and form and, there being no obvious disqualifying capability issues, is in my view the class/form horse.
Is Albaqaa a strong enough class/form horse to back? If one is seeking to bet at the probability level VDW claimed (80+%) the answer has to be no. Being ranked only tenth on ability within the field, there are, from a VDW perspective, nine better horses in the race and thus too great a possibility that at least one will return to form and beat Albaqaa. That important consideration apart, Albaqaa has a decent profile.
(To complete the picture had Collateral Damage been regarded as a consistent horse, the then three probables - CD, Mia's Boy and Penitent - would all be probables with form, and CD would have been the best of the three on the balance of class and form making him the class/form horse, but open to the same objection, from the betting point of view, as Albaqaa.)
In sum, whether or not one takes Collateral Damage as a consistent horse, one ends up with a class/form horse - Albaqaa or CD - too low in the ability rating ranking for a bet at the 80+% probability level.
When the basic method does throw up a class/form horse that meets all VDW's "winner in the race" criteria, they almost always win, but they don't come along every day and especially not in highly competitive handicaps like the Lincoln. But the basic method was, VDW wrote, "only a fraction" of what he knew, and most of the rest was only hinted at.
Undoubtedly one aspect of what might be termed "advanced" VDW was to look for consistency at a deeper and much less obvious level than the totalling of runners' last three placings. VDW gives an example in his March 1981 article with Gaye Chance, a horse whose last three placings were 1/1/0, ie 12 but where VDW was prepared to "forgive" the 0 as the horse was put in a race miles above its level. And this approach can be used with, for example, horses being run under the wrong conditions.
In relation to the Lincoln, I want briefly to explore the Gaye Chance approach, in an even less obvious way, and my concern is to see if any of the best horses in the race might be regarded as having a better claim for consideration than their apparent circumstances suggest, confining attention to the top four on ability: Advanced, Smokey Oakey, Extraterrestrial and Vitznau.
All four are mature horses who are much less likely to show improvement than the six four year olds in the field (and clearly Penitent is such a short price because of confidence that he has great scope to show improvement over his essentially rather modest public record to date). One can't discount considerable improvement with mature horses - Collateral Damage's performances in the second half of last season being a case in point. But what I am looking for is evidence of ability to win a race of the class of the Lincoln and a rational basis on VDW principles for supposing that tomorrow might be the day the horse concerned again puts in the level of performance of which he has proved to be capable.
Taking the four horses with the highest ability ratings:
Advanced: has won a class 754 off an Official Rating of 109 and a class 935 off 99, so tomorrow's class 779 off 105 is by no means implausible.
Smokey Oakey: won the 2008 Lincoln (a stronger race than tomorrow's with, on average, the runners being rated 4lb higher) off 95, and running off 97 tomorrow;
Extraterrestrial: won a class 249 off 95, tomorrow runs off 100
Vitznau: won a class 312 off 93, tomorrow runs off 98.
So Advanced and Smokey Oakey seem potentially plausible, while both Extraterrestrial and Vitznau would need to show considerable improvement - not impossible but not perhaps probable as 6yos each with over 30 races to his credit.
It remains to be seen whether Advanced, whose wins have all been over 6f and 7f can be as effective over 8f, or whether he is as effective on the likely soft going. If he is, as the best horse in the field from a VDW perspective, should he win it would be no great surprise, though he is certainly not one who could be found by the basic method.
The same is true of Smokey Oakey who is not in the first six and equals of the betting forecast and whose last three placings of 7/0/5 give him a consistency aggregate of 22, way too high for the basic method. But nevertheless I suggest something of a case can be made for Smokey Oakey. For a start, his best win was in the same race, on the same course, two years ago, and tomorrow he has the soft ground the Form Book suggests is his preferred going. He is 2lb higher in the relative weights than when winning in 2008, but he won a better Lincoln convincingly and I don't see a 2lb higher Official Rating as an impediment. But surely, it can be said, he has run poorly virtually ever since winning the 2008 Lincoln, with after a non handicap win a couple of months later, 11 runs in which he has never finished better than 5th, and never nearer the winner than 3.6ls. On his last run, in a modest class 156, he came only 5th, beaten 5.5l.
The fact is, though, that Smokey Oakey was raised to an Official Rating of 101 after the 2008 Lincoln and to 111 after the non handicap win two months later. Of the eleven runs since, nine were in non handicaps where he was usually hugely disadvantaged on handicap terms, by as much as 17lb. He had no chance in those races. He also ran in two handicaps. In the first of these, on 04/07/09, he came a decent 8th in a class 623 off 104 on good ground. In the second, on 03/10/09, he came a very well beaten 32nd in a class 997 off 102 on good/firm. In both, therefore, he was running off marks much higher than tomorrow's and on ground that did not suit.
If we take Smokey Oakey's last three handicap runs on good/soft or softer, the profile is:
3rd last: class 130, 4th, beaten 2.3l off 86
2nd last: class 78, won by 6l, off 86
last (2008 Lincoln): class 779, won by 1.3l, off 95
against that profile tomorrow's rather weaker class 779, off 97, on soft, looks plausible.
The obvious objection to the above is that the form of the three races (giving a good consistency total of 6) is too old to be relevant. And so it may well prove. But the counter argument is that here we have the second best horse in the race (and, unlike the best one, certainly with the right trip and going) at long last down to a potentially winning mark. And it is reasonable to assume connections think the horse can still win, as otherwise why keep him in training for nearly two years without even a penny in place money let alone a win?
Smokey Oakey is not the only horse in broadly his position. In addition to Advanced there are several lower ability rated horses now down to potentially winning marks, including Huzzah, Mister Hardy and Ishetoo. But of these Smokey Oakey looks to me to have the strongest logical case on VDW thinking behind him.
I am fairly sure VDW would not be backing either Albaqaa or Collateral Damage, whichever he saw as the class/form horse, and although Penitent may prove another Expresso Star there is not enough in the Form Book to make him an attractive proposition at what, from known public form, looks an absurdly short price. Whether VDW would consider the kind of argument I have mounted for Smokey Oakey I don't know, but there is a logical case on VDW principles to be made for him, and I've had a modest EW bet at 27.0.
