Daily Mail FORMCAST

[Yalwen]

On Saturday the Daily Mail announced, in a very low key manner, that Nigel Taylor’s FORMCAST would be ending after 43 years.  Now, I know that there have been many systems and methods based around the Top Rated 78 horse and also that some of them were quite successful, particularly in the non-handicap races. So, this morning I opened the paper to see what the replacement ‘private handicap ratings’ would be like. Unbelievably, in this day and age, there was no replacement. Just a list of runners for each race together with the usual betting forecast and they haven’t even printed the number of declarations per race. What a shambles! What used to be one of the country’s leading formcards now becomes a shadow of its former self. Talk about back to the drawing board. A very disappointing start to the week and my subscription to the rag will cease at the end of the month.

[Valiant Thor]

Just use the racing post ratings (RPR) top rated for the 78 rated you wont be a million miles out 😉

[Yalwen]

I'll do that VT, but I used to enjoy sitting down with a coffee and a pen and going through the runners and riders, marking the paper and making notes before I made a selection. Can't do that on T'internet. Plus, of course, at his peak Nigel Taylor was the very best. Some of his ratings, especially in the lower grade non handicaps were almost a licence to print money.  So, this is what we call progress, I suppose.

[Valiant Thor]

7 minutes ago, Yalwen said:

  So, this is what we call progress, I suppose.

I used to put up the RO78 (rule of 78) system selections on the now defunct Gummy Racing board

Then when I first started up my blog I used to put up them up there too until I moved on to better things.
I suppose we have to move with the times or else become a dinosaur, & we all know what happened to them.

[harry_rag]

4 minutes ago, Valiant Thor said:

or else become a dinosaur, & we all know what happened to them.

They appear in a successful and long-running film franchise? 

[Snoopdog]

I found Yalwen's post when I Googled the disappearance of Nigel Taylor, aka Formcast 78 and will miss it. I too had one or two successful little systems which used it.

Daily Mail racing coverage was good for a quick look to decide which races to delve into further.

It seems all the newspapers are "fading" racing coverage. I heard the Telegraph are no longer printing all racecards. A sign of the times.

[Malcolm BAKER]

How sad to see what used to be the best racing pages out of all the newspapers, now become one of the poorest.

The Ratings used to be a tremendous help in finding winners, and a listing of the top five trainers and jockeys at the Course, plus jocks riding weight.

I have now had to purchase a magnifying glass to read the print, now four or five Meetings are crammed into one page.

I can’t see it being long before my subscription to The Daily Mail is terminated.

 

 

[monty63]

On 8/11/2022 at 4:17 PM, Malcolm BAKER said:

How sad to see what used to be the best racing pages out of all the newspapers, now become one of the poorest.

The Ratings used to be a tremendous help in finding winners, and a listing of the top five trainers and jockeys at the Course, plus jocks riding weight.

I have now had to purchase a magnifying glass to read the print, now four or five Meetings are crammed into one page.

I can’t see it being long before my subscription to The Daily Mail is terminated.

 

 

yes and its just gone up to 90p you get less for more money now sign of the times

[Yalwen]

£1.30 for Saturday edition. £1.90 for Sunday’s paper. The rule of diminishing returns. The end is nigh for paper editions of newspapers, sadly. I don’t wonder at those prices. Most of the information that we used to rely on is now available on line for free.