In response to queries about VDW selections which do not seem to fall within his usual boundaries for consistency, the three to look at are Gaye Chance (from the March 1981 article, item 39 of "The Ultimate Wheil of Fortune"), and Park Express and Rakaposhi King (chapter 4 of "Systematic Betting" - RK was the unnamed winner of the 1986 Old Newton Cup).
In all honesty, though, it was one of Lee's examples rather than VDW's that really got me focused on this type of horse - Top Dirham which he referred to on the Gummy thread before the race it won on 19 July 2004.
Lee didn't discuss Top Dirham's consistency as such, and his elaboration to Pipedreamer two days later is helpful but not on this issue. And in fact Lee's posts on this issue are not always easily reconciled for their consistency (but that may either a matter of drafting or development of thinking over time). Relevant posts include:
16/12/04 - the comment to Greg;
20/05/05 - where Lee commented "VDW gave, in the form of Roushayd, further instructions in order to cope with seemingly inconsistent types, which was an extension of his original letter";
15/11/07 and 19/11/07 - responses to Mtoto.
Many of the Gummy posts were saved by Black Cat on his "ghost of Gummy" forum, which later merged with the Kimmypops one, and I assume the ones to which I've referred can be viewed there. If not, long before the Gummy forum closed I took the precaution of saving all the posts by Lee and Guest on Word files and will gladly email copies of the posts referred to above to those interested.
Taking the three VDW examples mentioned above, and Top Dirham, if one follows VDW's normal rules for identifying consistent horses, by their placings in their last three completed races, none of the four would be among the consistent horses for his or her race. But when the idea of consistency is considered not solely as a matter of arithmetic, but also within the context of trainers' strategies, some "seemingly inconsistent types" can, for objective reasons in each case, be properly viewed as the essentially consistent horses they are.
