This seemingly straightforward race provides as good an example as one will find of the pitfalls of following the VDW method with insufficient understanding.
We have currently eighteen runners and ranking them by VDW's ability rating produces the following (highest to lowest):
Confuchias
Kaldoun Kingdom
Zidane
Pavershooz
One Way Or Another
Baldemar
Sonny Red (equal to Baldemar)
Fantasy Explorer
Aldermoor
Coleorton Choice
Protector (equal to Coleorton Choice)
Jobe
Saucy Brown
Haajes
Tourist
Hotham
Courageous
Jonny Mudball
As usual at this time of year, the 4yos tend to be near the bottom of the ranking (the highest being Aldermoor, only 9th) and this has to be considered later.
The Post forecast gives the following at the front end: 7/2 Jonny Mudball, 9/2 Kaldoun Kingdom, 12/1 Fantasy Explorer, Tourist, 14/1 Baldemar, Confuchias, Courageous, Sonny Red, Zidane
From those nine, the three lowest consistency totals are:
04 Kaldoun Kingdom
07 Fantasy Explorer, Jonny Mudball
13 Confuchias
and these are "automatic" consistent horses.
In addition, there is one further horse from within the first six and equals of the forecast who might be a consistent horse (Tourist) and three from lower down in the betting that could potentially also be consistent horses (Hotham (07), One Way Or Another (16) and Haajes (18). In fact, only one of these, Tourist, meets VDW's rules for "discretionary" consistent horses and he is added to the four "automatics", so we have five in all.
As there are more than three, VDW would apply the rating method he used but did not explain in his Prominent King example, and using that eliminates Confuchias, leaving four probables:
Fantasy Explorer
Jonny Mudball
Kaldoun Kingdom
Tourist
If we then compare the list of probables with the top four from the ability rating ranking, we get a match in Kaldoun Kingdom: from VDW's perspective the second best horse in the race and one of the probables. A potential bet.
The next step is, in an oft referred to but seldom understood sentence from VDW's key March 1981 article, "To confirm what the figures say it is necessary to study the form of all concerned, taking particular note of the class in which they ran, the course they ran on, the pace and going of the respective races, distances won or beaten by and most important, how they performed in the later stages of each race".
Doing that initially to the four probables, the key points are:
Kaldoun Kingdom: ability rating 165, last run class 259, won, with no suggestion whatsoever that today's conditions won't suit
Fantasy Explorer: AR 88, last run class 74, 2nd beaten 0.5l, probably not best suited by soft going
Tourist: AR 52, last run class 312, 4th beaten 2.5l, like Fantasy Explorer may not be best suited by soft going
Jonny Mudball: AR 27 (but one of the 4yos in the field and will need extra attention), last run class 115, 2nd beaten 1.5l, untested on soft.
All four probables are in my view probables with form.
Once other checks are made it is reasonably clear that Kaldoun Kingdom's class 259 was a better race than Tourist's class 312. Kaldoun Kingdom is thus the best horse of the four and has the best form, and is the class/form horse. He is also in the top four of the field on ability and I have no doubt that some VDWers would stop at this point and think they had found a VDW bet.
But they would be wrong to stop there as there is further work to be done: specifically we need to check three points:
1) there is one better horse in the race from a VDW perspective - Confuchias. Have we any reason for supposing he will return to form, especially bearing in mind he is one of the five consistent horses and was only eliminated by use of VDW's probables device. Checking his record, Confuchias has won at classes 284 and 314, compared with today's 104. But his recent form shows nothing: three runs ago he came 2nd in a class 20 claimer, then 3rd in a class 42 handicap and just a fortnight ago 8th in a class 100 handicap. He'd need to show considerable improvement to win today and would not, for me, be a reason for not backing Kaldoun Kingdom;
2) there are five relatively unexposed 4yos in the field, whose ability (like Penitent's yesterday) may well not yet be reflected in their ability ratings: this needs to be examined. VDW offered a means of crosschecking here, by taking each horse's highest ever Split Second speed figure, adjusted for weight carried and where appropriate, distance beaten, as a supplementary rating. These days that means doing some work with the Split Second ratings, which are no longer adjusted for weight carried or, in my view, adequately for distance beaten, but it is easy enough to re-jig them on the lines Ken Hussey used when he was Split Second, and which were of course used by VDW in his 1981 2000 Guineas illustration (item 47 of "The Golden Years of Van der Wheil"). Re-jigging their Split Second ratings to reflect weight carried and distance beaten using the same numerics as Ken Hussey, none of the five merits regarding as worthy of a place among the four or five best in the field, so again no reason not to back Kaldoun Kingdom apart from the general concern that an unexposed horse might prove rather good. And of the five, Jonny Mudball is self-evidently the one about whom to be most concerned. He has had only three races, and judging by his position in the market, like Penitent yesterday has obviously shown enough off course for connections to believe he can show considerable improvement. Again, I would not let that put me off backing Kaldoun Kingdom as the aim is an 80+% strike rate not 100%, and if Jonny Mudball pipped Kaldoun Kingdom into second place, or indeed won by 10l provided KK was second, one just has to take it on the chin;
3) does Kaldoun Kingdom have ALL the characteristics of what VDW termed "a winner in the race", ie is his profile strong enough for him to be one of the minority of class/form horses worth backing? Kaldoun Kingdom in my view has all the characteristics except one, something that I refer to as ultra consistency. That is not a term VDW used as far as I am aware, but it is a usefully descriptive phrase used by a very knowledgeable VDWer who used to post on the now long gone Gummy forum as Lee. Lee to my knowledge has never publicly disclosed exactly what he meant by that term but was kind enough to give some hints which have helped me see what I believe he was driving at, although his examples suggest that he himself may not have driven quite the whole way there. However, a close examination of Kaldoun Kingdom's profile alongside that of relevant VDW examples such as Beau Ranger, Ela-Mana-Mou, Desert Orchid (7 February 1987) and Zilzal reveal a shortcoming in his form which can fairly be put under the heading of ultra consistency which means that, for me, while being the most likely winner Kaldoun Kingdom is not strong enough to back if one is determined to achieve an 80+% strike rate.
There is a further concern about Kaldoun Kingdom, namely the size of the prize on offer. VDW wrote that the class/form horse will usually win "if the prize is big enough". Is it today? Kaldoun Kingdom has demonstrated that he can win a class 259 and a class 312, but of course each time he wins his Official Rating increases, making it harder to win next time. Were he to win today's class 104, his rating would be sure to go to at least 102, meaning he'd be carrying 9.06 or more in top handicaps. No problem if connections view him as a Group horse, but if not might they not prefer to win a much more valuable handicap than today's off his current mark. There is not shortage of 6f handicaps and he could realistically win another worth at least double and probably triple what today's will pay. We have no way of knowing whether Kaldoun Kingdom is really out to win today, or whether the real aim is another class 312 handicap a little further down the line. That is a problem we didn't have with the Lincoln yesterday, where winning a class 779 was clearly a worthwhile target for each and every runner.
And that is really why today's race is so useful. Many will be those who have applied their understanding of VDW's March 1981 article to a current race and found one like Kaldoun Kingdom. Quite probably it went on and won and encouraged, at least temporarily, the sense that here really was a method which worked. Or it may have lost and led to the thought that even when a really clearcut selection is found all too often it fails. But the truth is that neither is the real position: if one backs decent-looking class/form horses like Kaldoun Kingdom one will get winners but not eight out of ten long term - because he lacks one of the characteristics which the four VDW examples I've named have, and we have the "is the prize big enough" problem.
In my post reviewing the Lincoln I mentioned that I find only a bet every 2-3 weeks on average, and that is because I don't bet seriously on any selection, however many the pluses, unless it fully meets the VDW "winner in the race" criteria. This often means one's analyses end as today's - as strong class/form horse identified but not seriously backed, for a reason of which most VDWers are wholly unaware. But that is the price of achieving a really high strike rate.
Two critics of mine in the past have posted on the successor to the Gummy forum, now apparently merging with another forum. One in particular claims to be enthusiastic about VDW and asserts that the answer lies in the passage from the March 1981 article quoted early in this post. To give him credit, unlike many others he deson't name three or four in each race but gives straightforward single win bet selections, and I would not be at all surprised if he selected Kaldoun Kingdom today. And he has some decent winners to his credit - at 4/1, 9/2 and 6/1. But his record on the proofing section of the successor to Gummy forum is those three winners from 28 selections, a strike rate of 11% and a level stakes loss of 10.5 points, which tells its own story. Another critic put up six win selections all of which lost and then, presumably, gave up.
On a different public forum another critic of "purist" VDWers started an alternative thread, putting up selections in several races a day, often more than one bet in a race, found by a most superficial look at aspects of VDW. Obviously if one names enough horses, some will win. But yesterday he named 16 win and one place only bets, ALL of which lost! Yet he has the cheek to criticise others who are at least trying to understand the method in its entirety.
Anyway, live and let live. But the point is that a very high strike rate is not achieved easily, but by eliminating all class/form horses except those that have every characteristic of what VDW termed "a winner in the race". Kaldoun Kingdom today comes very close indeed and falls short on just one, but also with the "is the prize big enough?" question in the background. He will probably win or be beaten by Jonny Mudball if he proves to be as good as his market position suggests (an eventuality I would NOT regard as a failure of the method if KK met all the criteria and was a bet). But while if one backs horses like KK one will have more than a bet every 2-3 weeks, one assuredly will not achieve an 80% strike rate.
