Shortly after the Stewards Cup I received an email from someone who follows this blog, who has obviously had rather a frustrating time, VDW-wise, lately and for whom Palace Moon's dismal performance was, I hope only temporarily, the last straw. After listing a number of other class/form horses (in his view) that have failed this week, he writes "how can a class/form horse who you said had good form possibly come last but one?"
An immediate answer is that VDW never said that the class/horse would always win, and the fact that Palace Moon failed to win such a large field competitive handicap should have surprised no one. That he came 27th of 28 was a surprise, but probably indicates that something untoward happened because plainly that was nothing like the level of performance that could reasonably have been expected.
But the question suggests a rather basic misunderstanding about VDW's methods and warrants a rather more substantial answer than the above, albeit that that answer is correct.
It needs to be understood that in his various letters and articles by VDW's own account only "a fraction" of what he knew was revealed, and his booklet, "Systematic Betting" only added "slightly" to what had been disclosed previously (letter of February 1996 reprinted on page 6 of Tony Peach's "Systems in my Racing"). (An indication of what he might have disclosed, but never did directly, was given in the very brief "Conclusion" of "Systematic Betting".)
What VDW did disclose was, primarily, the approach summarised in his article of 28 March 1981 (item 39 of "The Golden Years of Van der Wheil"), a relatively simplistic way of identifying the most likely winner in a race on the basis of what he later referred to as "exposed form". The most likely winner, on the basis of the presumptions of that method, he later referred to as the "class/form horse" (article dated 26 January 1985 reprinted in "The Ultimate Wheil of Fortune"), but in the March 1981 article VDW indicated that not all such horses should be backed. On the day he discussed in that article he found several class/form horses but explained why only two should be backed (Little Owl and Sunset Cristo). Later he wrote than he backed less than 20% of the horses he expected to win.
The point about class/form status is that it means the horse in question is, on the basis of the presumptions within the method set out in the March 1981 article, individually the horse most likely to win. But that says nothing at all about the probability that it will win, and that probability can vary greatly. A horse may, like Little Owl in one of the races discussed in the March 1981 article, be a "racing certainty", or it may simply have, say, a 10% chance of winning, whereas all the other runners have chances between 1% and 9%, In this latter case the class/form horse is 90% likely to lose!
So the key is to identify those class/form horses with a high probability of winning, and that is where a distinction VDW drew between horses that might be the winner of the race and those who were "winners in the race", ie had all the characteristics of a high probability class/form horse. These are the characteristics of the horses VDW named unambiguously as bets (or certainties) such as Little Owl, Sunset Cristo, Clayside, Broadsword (which lost), Royal Bond, etc, and two of them are:
1) position in the ability rating ranking of the field - ALL such named selections were in the top five, for a reason which is obvious (if there are too many higher ability rated horses in the race than the class/form horse there is the risk that one or more may either return to form or have unrecognised less exposed form);
2) "ultra consistency", a phrase which, as far as I know, VDW himself never used but which Lee has used and which in my view helpfully sums up certain of the attributes of VDW's named bets.
If we wait for class/form horses with all the "winner in the race" characteristics, we are concerned with horses with an 80+% chance of winning, but the reality is that the large majority of class/form horses, such as Palace Moon, fall short in some respects. Then we have two options. Either to leave them altogether and wait for the next "80+%" class/form horse, or form a view about the realistic probability of a sub-80+% class/form horse winning and back it if we are content with the price.
Today, as stated in my Stewards Cup analysis, Palace Moon failed on both the "winner in the race" characteristics I've described above, so he was not an "80+%" horse. What suggested that he had a decent chance was the strength of his recent form, especially that of his last race, which when assessed in the way VDW showed us was strong. Whether that made the horse worth a bet is very much a matter of personal judgement, but if one did back him one should never have done so on the basis that he was a clear VDW bet in the same category as Little Owl, Sunset Cristo etc.
My own preference is for handicaps, mostly class 2 and 3 but sometimes decent class 4s, and especially if one confines oneself to races like today's where nearly all the runners have quite a bit of form in the book to be evaluated, "80+%" class/form horses going up in class are rare. And that is unsurprising as very few handicappers with the kind of placings we find with the VDW "80+%" horses win four handicaps in a row. Most of the "80+%" horses I find in handicaps are dropping in class compared with their most recent race, like Roushayd. And quite a proportion of them qualify on the basis of what VDW described as "less obvious form" rather than the exposed form illustrated in most of VDW's examples, ie do not necessarily have very low consistency totals.
In summary, therefore, my email correspondent has unrealistic expectations in thinking that he can find a dozen or more class/form horses a week and that most will win. He needs to address the question of what are the "winner in the race" characteristics and at least initially eliminate all class/form horses which fall short in that respect. If he relies on exposed form, he is likely to find very few bets indeed - perhaps one a week from a dozen handicaps analysed - BUT they will give a very high strike rate. He may well find more if he analyses non handicaps, though probably with lower prices.
There are, obviously, various ways of finding more bets from the races analysed: one can make judgements about the probability of sub "80+%" class/form horses like Palace Moon winning and back them when the odds are sufficiently long (but increased profitability will be accompanied by a lower strike rate), back "books" rather than single horses, take advantage of the Betfair place market, etc etc.
The option I have pursued, though, is that suggested in the "Entering The Straight" section of VDW's article "From Start to Finish" (reprinted in "The Ultimate Wheil of Fortune"), to follow a number of trainers and get acquainted with "less obvious form". I started with T D Easterby, D Barron and Mrs R Carr, all of whom I see as both successful and straightforward, and have learnt a great deal following horses such as Hamish McGonagall, Spinning and Red Cape, just to name one from each stable. One doesn't get it right every time, of course, but what I have learnt about "less obvious form" has significantly increased the number of "80+%" horses I find, though I still count myself extremely lucky to find a bet in more than about 15% of the handicaps I analyse.
