Below is a slightly edited version of a post I made on a small VDW forum as part of a discussion with Mtoto, which may be of more general interest.
"As to the question of whether one element [of the method] improves the strike rate, if we take VDW's 80+% claim seriously and wish to emulate it, it follows logically that we have to deploy ALL the elements. Once one does that, and shows one can achieve the 80+% rate consistently, then it might make sense to see if one could do even better by modifying the method, but it is surely a question of walking before one tries to run.
As anyone can see, the main VDW method is one of a series of eliminations, and that necessarily means that, from the very first stage, sometimes the winner will be eliminated: after all, whatever differences folk have about the method none of us thinks it includes considering as possible class/form horses those that are both outside the first five/six of the forecast and (even after making "Gaye Chance" type allowances) outside those with one of the five lowest consistency totals. Yet such horses win a proportion of races, especially in the big field handicaps we tend to discuss on a Saturday. Similarly, sorting the real consistent horses from those with one of the five lowest consistency totals will sometimes eliminate the winner; ditto when sorting the probables from the consistent horses, the probables with form from the probables which are not also form horses, and the class/form horse from the other probables with form. Every time one eliminates due to the application of a stage in the method, one runs the risk of cutting out the winner - and in practice it happens most of the time! But the point is, of course, not that the method fails to find the winners of most races: rather that when one arrives at the class/form horse (ie the horse that has passed all the tests applied to that point) AND that class/form horse has all the "winner in the race" characteristics (most notably position in ability rating ranking and Lee's "ultra consistency") it almost always wins.
The difficulty that some have is I think that they try to graft bits of the method into their existing thinking on how to weigh up a race. No problem in that, of course, and then the question does any specific element of the method help is relevant, because what they are doing is weighing up whether adding an extra piece to their existing approach is helpful. But that wasn't what VDW was offering the method to do - rather, it was to enable those who want to do so to approach race analysis from a completely new perspective, and to do so means giving up one's preconceptions and patiently working out all the elements of the VDW method, one by one.
And you are right when you suggest that a strict quest for the 80%+ strike rate means relatively few bets - something else VDW made clear. As you know, I prefer handicaps and reviewing all VDW's examples it is notable that he gives few bets (as distinct from selections) from handicaps and these fall into two categories: highly consistent horses going up in class (eg Sunset Cristo) and less obviously consistent horses going down in class (eg Roushayd). Especially in the better class handicaps, the first type are in practice rare - not many handicappers win two or three on the bounce and those that do are often younger, progressive horses rising in class who tend to be excluded by the method from being bets because of their relatively low ranking in the ability rating league! Anyone relying on these would be lucky to find a handful a year on the Flat.
Much more fruitful in terms of numbers of bets are the less obviously consistent horses dropping in class as, in his own variation on the method, the late Pat Powers seemed to have discovered. And Lee also included several of this type among his Gummy winners, eg Double Vodka, Top Dirham and Lochbuie. I reckon I find at least ten "Roushayds" for every "Sunset Cristo", and if one thinks about it it is not surprising. With more mature handicappers successful ones tend to reach their limit in handicaps because of the weight they have to carry, and then one of two things is likely to happen: they rise to listed/group class and leave the handicap scene, or they stay in handicaps (or return to them after not making the grade in listed/group company) and then only win again when they drop down to a winning mark and conditions are right. (Raslan, who has been the subject of an interesting thread on The Racing Forum, proves on checking to be an extreme example of this latter type.) And as Lee implied in several of his posts, for this type consistency is not just - or, one might add, even - a matter of low placings totals. To get mature handicappers down to a winning mark, trainers often run them under the "wrong" circumstances and that I suspect is probably the scenario to which VDW was referring when he commented that a horse had won for him with three duck eggs to its name."
