BANKER DOUBLE AT DONCASTER AND DUBAI: Daqman landed the Irish Lincolnshire last weekend to go one up on Pricewise at the start of the Flat, and 40-12 overall.
Today they clash in 13 races in England and at Meydan.
Daqman has a banker at each of Doncaster and Dubai.
Just look at the column’s schedule today and next week.
TODAY: LINCOLN HANDICAP
TODAY: DUBAI: WORLD CUP
TOMORROW: GUINEAS TRIALS
NEXT WEEK: GRAND NATIONAL ABC
NEXT WEEK: PROFESSIONAL BETS
NEXT WEEK: BETDAQ VALUE AT AINTREE EVERY DAY
YOU READ DAQMAN’S LINCOLN GUIDE: NOW HERE’S ONE WORD MORE
1.30 Doncaster (Brocklesby) The Press will tell that you could have had a dozen winners a year (in fact, 10 and 14 in the last two seasons) from following the Brocklesby horses but what they don’t tell you is that you would have had 114 losing bets, waiting for them to win.
Bill Turner (Paddy Again) has recent form-figures in this of 10102141, using 3lb claimers for all but last year’s winner, when Ryan While was allowed 7lb – he claims 3lb today – and, in that time, whether on Town Moor or not, the winner has been drawn 10 (twice), 13, 14 and 19 in big fields.
Duqesna Penguin (25.0 on BETDAQ), by the precocious Winker Watson and related to top sprinters, is where my pin landed.
2.05 Doncaster Mile Punters on Sweet Lightning or Robert The Painter in the Lincoln will be looking to their stablemate Custom Cut to put a spring in their step but he needed two runs last March before getting off the mark in April.
The same applies to Guest Of Honour, and Graphic is a summer-autumn winner, whereas Fencing won a Listed like this one first time last season.
He then failed to make any impression in Group company and John Gosden must be keen to fly his kite early again. The race is a breeze for a horse of his class and he will have been ‘got up’ for it amid fears that, when the big guns are rolled out, they will blow him away again.
2.40 Doncaster (Cammidge Trophy) Though older horses can win sprints, they need winding up, and I wouldn’t want to be on previous winners of this, Jimmy Styles and Inxile, now aged 10 and 9. Captain Ramius has won all his races from July onwards and Mass Rally has always needed at least one run back.
Jimmy Styles has the best early-bird form but his yard is 0-11 this year on AW. His stablemate, Es Que Love, has had all his success in April-May but has changed stables, which may, or may not, help his cause (will Clive Cox give him 21 starts as Mark Johnston did last year?)
Class animals in this are Jack Dexter and Maureen. Jack won the race last year and yet managed second in the big sprint on Champions Day at Ascot in the autumn. Still only five, he’s a really big noise now after nearly a stone improvement last year.
But you’d ‘expect’ Maureen today (6.6 on BETDAQ). She’s another who wins first time (two years running, including the Fred Darling), then fails to mix it with the best though you can hardly call a couple of lengths off the winner in the Guineas and fourth in the Coronation Stakes ‘failure.’
Covered in black type, I thought she’d go to Paddocks but Team Hannon reckon she can hack it in sprints and she certainly seems a bet to do so, getting all the allowances, most significantly 10lb from Jack Dexter. That’s three or four lengths start.
2.55 Kempton (Rosebery Handicap) They don’t want Grendisar this morning (out to 9.2) and I can’t have Bishops Castle with Brian Ellison in poor form this year. The horse has won only a maiden and raced no higher than class 4 so far, though the gelding op might help.
Vital Evidence, Sir Michael Stoute’s first runner in England this year before Dank in Dubai, scored first time last season.
Salutation (13.5 on BETDAQ this morning), a winner and placed five times in class 2, is from a yard that’s in gear, with current form figures of 111423. Rebellious Guest is back to his level after finding the Winter Derby beyond him but the market suggests he’s had enough for now.
3.15 Doncaster Spring Mile The result by stall in this has been confirmed in the Lincoln on good ground (three years) since the reopening of Doncaster, but when the ground rides soft – as in the three other years out of the six– the returns twice show a complete reversal of the draw result.
All we can say is that, since the return to Town Moor, stalls 12 to 19 won four Spring Miles and three Lincolns. Four-year-olds have won six from seven of this consolation leg and only one winner of the six has carried less than 9st 7lb.
That makes Gworn (4-9-8) a stand-out, and Ed Dunlop has had one runner, one winner, winner this week and may be lining up an early start: 9.6 on BETDAQ, as I write.
3.50 Doncaster (LINCOLN HANDICAP) See Archive yesterday for ABC Guide.
I’ve been through the Lincoln in detail in the ABC Guide. But allow me One Word More. What do these Lincoln runners have in common? Stream of Gold (2005), Kings Majesty (2006), Smokey Oakey (2008), Expresso Star (2009), Penitent (2010), Fremont and Gunner Lindley (2011), Fury (2012) and Strictly Silver (2013).
The answer is they are rare in the race: all four-year-olds at 10-1 or less (in fact, 3-1, 100-30, 5-1, 13-2, 8-1 four times and 10-1 at SP) and they finished: 171110038.
That’s a 44% strike rate, four winners from nine runners, and just before them were Pablo (2003, won 5-1) and Babodana (won 2004) both also four-year-olds.
Yes, Babodana started 20-1 but the Newmarket Listed winner, a front-runner, perfectly drawn on the rail, was priced up by me in my newspaper at ‘between 8-1 and 10-1’. I thought the bookies were mad to go twenties. I napped it.
The returns for this rare group might have been even better but Kings Majesty was drawn 27 when the first two came home from 9 and 7 in 2006, and Fury finished third from stall 9 when the first two ran out of gates 12 and 21 two years ago.
Pablo (six starts), Babodana (11), Stream Of Gold (only 4), Very Wise (15), Smokey Oakey (16) and Penitent (6) also had in common very light careers up to that point.
If the handicapper is right, he should see 18 runners finish in line today but we know they won’t and he knows they won’t for this reason: he cannot properly rate and quantify young horses and those with limited experience, what we call ‘unexposed.’
Step forward the four-year-olds again: One Word More (12 starts), Gabrial’s Kaka (11), Unsinkable (5), Consign (14), Off Art (4). Of the five-year-olds, Whispering Warrior (13) is also comparatively lightly raced.
And the offers on BETDAQ this morning? 8.6 Gabrial’s Kaka, 9.0 Off Art, 12.0 One Word More, 14.5 Consign, 26.0 Unsinkable.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: I reject Gabrial’s Kaka on the grounds that he’s so far been kept to a sound surface – indeed, won only on good and firm ground – and his form figures above class 3 last season were 30002. Should improve but needs to.
There’s not a penny piece for Unsinkable, and Whispering Warrior is so far only a class-4 animal on turf. I shall take the 9.0 Off Art and 12.0 One Word More, both winners with cut in the ground, both lightly raced and ‘could be anything’ for teams with a long history of handicap killings.
Despite his weight, I think the class horse is Tullius, from a yard in scorching form; must get involved with apprentice find of 2013, Oisin Murphy, in the saddle.
DAQMAN’S 1-2-3: One Word More 1, Off Art 2, Tullius 3.
DAQMAN THE MAGICIAN BANKS ON BALLYDOYLE STAR IN DUBAI
1.10 Meydan (Godolphin Mile) Those that think Glory Awaits (Jamie Spencer) is a prophetic name should reflect that the Guineas runner-up hasn’t won a race since his maiden in 2012 and was nearly 12 lengths off Soft Falling Rain at Newmarket in September.
Last year’s winner under Paul Hanagan from stall 13, Soft Falling Rain is in gate 5 now with the threeparts of a length runner-up, Haatheq (Dane O’Neill), 5lb better off and ‘stealing’ stall 13, which also won it in 2010.
Shuruq won the trial for this race, beating Variety Club (aged six) and Capital Attraction (seven) – Gabrial, Eastern Rules and Haatheq behind – and the four-year-old is the likely improver over them.
1.45 Meydan (Dubai Gold Cup) Fast ground will suit Ballydoyle’s Curragh Cup winner Ernest Hemingway, who should take care of his Irish compatriots.
Like the David Simcock raider, Moment In Time, Certerach (3rd), Simenon and Saddlers Rock were all behind Cavalryman – last year’s winner of this – in the Nad Al Sheba Trophy (1m 6f) on the first day of the month.
Now We Can has ground to make up on Ed Dunlop’s Joshua Tree (Canadian International), though his entry in the Grade-1 Tenno Sho (2m) suggests a stayer’s programme this season.
Now We Can looked massive at 16.0 last night and offers were trimmed to 12.0 this morning. He and Ernest Hemingway (7.8) could oust Cavalryman from his Gold Cup chair now that he’s eight.
2.25 Meydan (UAE Derby) They have four-year-olds in this Dubai Derby but – if in form – Ballydoyle usually saves the purists a heart attack, winning the last two with top second-season colts, Daddy Long Legs and Lines Of Battle.
Giovanni Boldini could be another one. He’s shown speed enough for the knockers to say he won’t stay but O’Brien has him in the Irish and French Derbys and he tends to know better!
But there could be a ‘monster’ in this. UAE Guineas (Asmar fifth) and Caulfield Guineas winner, Long John, is a powerhouse. Only keenness has prevented his being unbeaten to date.
3.03 Meydan (Sprint) Sole Power (Edward Lynam for Ireland) beat Shea Shea at Royal Ascot but, like Medicean Man, followed him home twice in the big March sprints at Meydan a year ago.
He came back in the same form for the first of them three weeks ago with Ahtoug, Dux Scholar, Sole Power and Catcall behind, though all bar Sole Power had prepped for the race.
Maybe front-runner Amber Sky will topple Shea Shea (stall 12) where all others have failed. The Hong Kong champion, only five, has grown into a massive ball of muscle and his trainer has run one, won one, on this Dubai track.
3.41 Meydan (Golden Shaheen) Rich Tapestry is the one out in the 12 stall here, whereas last year’s winner, Reynaldothewizard, has the same gate again in 5, with Sterling City – a better sprinter in Hong Kong than Rich Tapestry – adjacent in 4.
However, another difference is that Sterling City has won only on turf, whereas Rich Tapestry is four from four on a synthetic surface and won his prep on today’s Tapeta, beating ‘Reynaldo’.
Very hard to call one of the three, so I will settle for a bit on Edward Lynam’s raider, Balmont Mast (Ryan Moore), 13.5 on BETDAQ. That’s ‘wrong’ for last year’s quarter-length (‘just failed’) runner-up, a closing g fifth at the end of Rich Tapestry’s recent trial.
4.39 Meydan (Dubai Duty Free) Vercingetorix, whose name means superior, once defeated Julius Caesar (but only once). The eponymous undefeated racehorse stormed home in the prep for this, yet is twice the price in BETDAQ offers ()8.4) than English raiders The Fugue and Dank – both with the sex allowance to help – and the Japanese champion Just A Way.
Is it far enough for The Fugue, an Oaks and Champion Stakes winner? Can Dank step up from fillies-and-mares-only races, albeit one of them the Breeders Cup? Will Just A Way handle the Dubai track?
5.15 Meydan (Sheema Classic) Irish 2,000 Guineas winner, Magician, who beat The Fugue in the Breeders Cup, can outgun the Japan Cup one-two, Gentildonna and Denim And Ruby.
I have opposed (two lays out of two) Cirrus Des Aigles as he’s got older. He won this Sheema Classic in 2012 but has had to drop down from Group 1 level to score since on the soft in France. Lay again.
6.05 Meydan (Dubai World Cup) An anti-climax; no way has it the thrills of the sprints or the clash of top quality international tackle in the Shaheen and the Duty Free, and favourites have a poor recent record.
The stats say African Story (he’s seven and never won a Group/Grade 1) and last year’s runner-up Red Cadeaux (he’s eight): surely not! The top four are at a serious disadvantage (no winner drawn under five on Tapeta, only one before that ever on dirt). On the other hand, Ruler Of The World (Aidan O’Brien) and Mukhadram (William Haggas) are out wide.
The 5, 6, 7, 8 stalls (four out of five) are the ideal. Hillstar (in 7) has some work to do to catch Ruler Of The World on Champion Stakes form but Military Attack (in gate 8), horse of the year in Hingkong and the Singapore Gold Cup winner, has a devastating finish on him.
DAQMAN’S BETS:
DAQMAN ON LINCOLN DAY (staked to win 30 points)
BET 1.25pts win and place DUQUESA PENGUIN (1.30 Doncaster)
BANKER: BET 10pts win (nap) FENCING (2.05 Doncaster)
BET 5.3pts win MAUREEN and 2.5pts win (stakes saver) JACK DEXTER (2.40 Doncaster)
BET 5.7pts win VITAL EVIDENCE and 2.4pts win SALUTATION (2.55 Kempton)
BET 3.4pts win GWORN (3.15 Doncaster)
BET 3.75pts win OFF ART and 2.7pts win ONE WORD MORE (3.50 Doncaster)
DAQMAN IN DUBAI (staked to win 20 points)
BET 5.7pst win SHURUQ (1.10 Meydan)
BET 3pts win ERNEST HEMINGWAY and 1.8pts win NOW WE CAN (1.45 Meydan)
BET 8.3pts win LONG JOHN and 3pts win (stakes saver) GIOVANNI BOLDINI (2.15 Meydan)
BET 6.25pts win AMBER SKY and 4pts win (stakes saver) SHEA SHEA (3.30 Meydan)
BET 1.6pts win BALMONT MAST (3.41 Meydan)
BET 2.7pts win VERCINGETORIX (4.39 Dubai)
LAY 10pts CIRRUS DES AIGLES and BANKER: BET 20pts win MAGICIAN (5.17 Meydan)
BET 3.7pts win MILITARY ATTACK and 0.7pts win (stakes saver) RULER OF THE WORLD (6.05 Meydan)
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