01). "You raise a very interesting point regarding trainers …. It has to be remembered that the majority of horses in a race are not there to win, but being prepared to win ... Only supporting a horse when you know it is out to win, and the threats are negligible is what one should strive for ..." (02/03/02.)
02). "Surely prize money is by far the most important thing on a trainer's mind. He will eventually have a good idea of the conditions that best suit the horse and can then aim for the best prize under those conditions. VDW was shrewd enough to realise this was the case and devised a method that took this factor in to account." (07/03/03.)
03). "In the long distance hurdle at Haydock I'll be backing Persian Waters after a decent effort in the Coral Cup, getting stacks of weight from Deanos Beano and a few pounds from Carlovent." (03/05/03.)
[Only backing a horse when one knows it is out to win is slef-evidently sensible, but how does one know? Perhaps Lee's selection of Persian Waters, I think the longest priced winner he posted pre race on the Gummy forum, might help.
Anyone with even superficial knowledge of VDW's work couldn't but have PW as one of the horses to be considered. Applying the stages I've illustrated numerous times one ends up with four probables of whom the top three, in descending order of ability rating rankings, were the three mentioned by Lee: Deano's Beeno, Carlovent and PW. So no mystery in why PW in invites careful consideration. But how can we judge whether he was placed in the Haydock race to win, or merely as part of being prepared for a future win?
All we have to go on, except any comments that may have been reported in the press from connections, is what was in the Form Book, and when Lee considered the race the ostensible signs were not that encouraging: PW had only ever won one NH race, an ordinary novice hurdle back in the 1999/2000 season.
In 2000/1, PW ran three times on the NH, and it was his first run that season that offers us some encouragement: 2nd, beaten a neck, in a class 193 handicap hurdle, giving the winner 12lb and finishing 10l clear of the third. He was then dropped a lot in class and finished well down the field, having been hampered early. Finally he was pushed up in class again, to 209, and was in touch before making an effort but weakening about 3f out, on heavy going. So from 2000/1 it was clear that PW was competitive at up to around class 200 but might not be suited by heavy.
PW did not run on the NH in 2001/2, nor on the Flat in 2002 (he had a few Flat runs in 2000 and 2001) so the presumption must be that the horse was injured. But he came back in 2002/3.
His first race in the 2002/3 season did not come until January 2003, when he came a close 2nd in a class 66 handicap hurdle, beaten less than a length, despite breaking a blood vessel. A month later he came 3rd, beaten just under 4l, when raised in class to 160, again in a handicap hurdle. Given the class of the race in terms of prize money, and in terms of the runners, this clearly showed improvement, and that he wasn't too far off the level of form he had shown in his first run in the 2000/1 season. Then he was pushed up a long way in class - to 435 - in the Coral Cup and as Lee noted put in a decent effort. In fact he "chased the leaders 2 out" but made no impression and was beaten 13l. When one bears in mind that the winner, Xenophon, had in its previous race won the class 511 Pierse Hurdle at Leopardstown it would have shown remarkable improvement on PW's part to have gone close, and running as he did still showed improvement as that run was certainly what VDW regarded as a "form" run.
So by the time of the Haydock race on 3 May, Lee knew that the relatively lightly raced PW (only three runs in the season to date) was back to, and had probably improved on, the level of performance he had shown back in 2000/1. Now dropped into a class 150, and running off bottom weight, and not on heavy going over which arguably a questionmark existed, it had to be assumed he was there to win: although he had yet to win a handicap hurdle, he had run well enough in the 193 in 2000/1, and in the 160 and 435 in his races immediately prior to the class 150, for one to be confident that the race was a realistic target, and it was worth enough (especially with the season coming to a close) to make it worth winning. (Whether if PW had been running in a class 70 carrying 12.00 he could have been considered "off" is another matter.)
So, a probable, and (unlike Carlovent) a probable with form, placed to win, with only one possible danger, the apparent class/form horse in the race and short priced favourite, Malcolm Pipe's Deano's Beeno. The question then to be considered was did Deano's Beeno present much of a threat - a question outside the scope of this post but with part of the answer hinted at in Lee's comment re weight.
Whether Lee came to his conclusion by the line of reasoning set out above, only he knows. But that line of reasoning is in my view logical, based squarely on VDW's considerations of class and form.]
04). "Particularly in handicap races the majority of the field are there NOT to win, but instead being trained/readied to win. A horse needs to be in tiptop condition before the plan can be executed and the trainer, using a number of tactics, will do this at the racetrack. These tactics will include running their horse over an inadequate distance, on going it doesn't perform on, on a course that doesn't suit its running style, in a class that is too high, having it ridden in a way that will give it no chance, or a combination of all of these.
This will enable the trainer to get his horse fit and at the same time bring it down the handicap a few pounds, which can often give the trainer more entry options." (28/05/04.)
