MARVELLOUS OAKS DAY: The forecasters say we are set fair for a fine Oaks Day at Epsom, with Marvellous the likely favourite in a field of 17. But the last three winners have all started at 20-1.
YES, SHE’S THE TOPS! Daqman first marks up the fillies for top jockey, trainer, breeding, draw, form and going preference so far. Then he marks them down again as he sifts the negatives!
DAQMAN LEADS 35-9: The Flat-season score in the value challenge – with tips in 2.10 and 4.00 today – is Daqman 35, Pricewise 9 (total 74-21). Daqman has 12 bankers out of 14.
IHTIMAL IS THE WINNER ON POINTS
* Top Oaks jockeys IHTIMAL (Kieren Fallon) and AMAZING MARIA (Frankie Dettori)
* Top trainers AMAZING MARIA (Ed Dunlop), DAZZLING, MARVELLOUS, PALACE (Aidan O’Brien), IHTIMAL (Saeed Bin Suroor), HONOR BOUND, REGARDEZ (Ralph Beckett)
* Top-rated fillies: MARVELLOUS (116), IHTIMAL (110), TARFASHA (109)
* Top on breeding HONOR BOUND, MARVELLOUS
* Top of the draw (6-10 from stalls 2 to 7): DAZZLING, IHTIMAL, INCHILA, MARSH DAISY, MARVELLOUS, PALACE
* Top trials winners ANIPA, MARSH DAISY, TAGHROODA
* Top form (3 for a win, 2 for second, 3 third): IHTIMAL, LILY RULES
* Top on going (good) AMAZING MARIA, ANIPA, TAGHROODA
* Top ABC test (Daqman Archive, Tuesday): DAZZLING, HONOR BOUND, MADAME CHIANG, TAGHROODA, VOLUME
* Top two (on total marks): 1 IHTIMAL, 2 MARVELLOUS
PUMP UP THE VOLUME AT 22.0
1.35 Epsom (Princess Elizabeth Stakes) Sir Michael Stoute is not only leading trainer in this but the only one to win twice with fillies and mares giving away a Group penalty earned after the previous August.
Mango Diva did that at Gowran Park in September, and was not disgraced in the Group-2 Middleton at York on her return, being allowed to race as a spectator for most of the 10 furlongs.
Odeliz was third in the Middleton but had the edge on fitness that day. Thistle Bird had a run back in that race, ‘too free’ without the hood, which helped win her this Princess Elizabeth last season, and was on for her last four successes. Not today, and she’s now six years old.
Group-1 winners dropped in class here are Melody of Love (moderate second season, up to a mile plus for the first time here) and Just The Judge.
The Irish 1,000 Guineas winner was otherwise second fiddle three times to Sky Lantern last year, and the Charles Hill stable has not had a great year so far (8-105 on turf, currently 1-19 including three consecutive beaten favourites).
Just The Judge had the freshness taken out of her with a fair effort in the Earl of Sefton for her reappearance. She is said to have scoped badly afterwards.
But it was a far cry from the storming start of her juvenile career (three in a row) or her narrow defeat first time up in the Newmarket 1,000 Guineas.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: This reads like the old story: a still-maturing horse kept in training by Sir Michael Stoute, quietly prepared to come good in a race the trainer has won before against animals useful in the past but with question marks over them now. I tasted Mango at 6.2 on BETDAQ this morning.
2.10 Epsom Despite seeming help from a low draw on these notorious turns, the last four winners came from stalls 8 (twice), 10 and 12, in two cases sweeping down the wide outside, in one barging through as gaps closed, in the other being ‘dropped right out like a non-trier’ (quote unquote Racing Post form).
One of them was Resurge – four wins on the course, two in this – but he’s nine years old now. Salutation (stall 4) and Soviet Rock are likely to take them along but both are higher in the handicap than for their winning form. Ditto Tres Coronas, Sennockian Star and Aussie Reigns.
I can’t have Gworn, with Ed Dunlop in horrendous form. You can’t back anything from a stable missing strike with current form figures of 223324 – including two beaten favourites – and whose turf score is 1-58 this season.
Nor can I have Farraaj, who hasn’t won on turf since 2011, and Air Pilot’s huge leap in class requires a similar leap of faith.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: Clon Brulee, who has much better form left-handed, is another tasty dish at 10.2 on BETDAQ this morning, ideally drawn for his style of running and Keiren Fallon’s first ride at the big meeting for Godolphin.
2.45 Epsom (Diomed Stakes) This is normally a stinker for favourites, though the joint jolly, Gregorian, won last year. He’s back for more today, first time up but goes well fresh.
In fact, he’d had a run when he beat Penitent in this a year ago and, at the revised weights under different conditions today, there is nothing between them on paper, though you just doubt Penitent’s ability to put back-to-back wins together at his age.
Graphic is 3lb better with French Navy though he beat that one at Ascot in April. French Navy (like Windhoek) has been a nearly horse at this level and Graphic tries it for the first time today.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: I’m calling the younger horse, Gregorian, obviously prepared for a repeat, though with little if any in hand on Penitent, except age, and with Graphic trying Group company for the first time.
3.20 Epsom Abseil has to win this to justify the Royal Hunt Cup plunge. In fact, he has to win it to get in the race! Soft ground has seen his withdrawal recently and he may just have sneaked in here ahead of Saturday’s thunderstorms.
But it will be a difficult ride for James Doyle from the 2 stall unless, as the Ascot betting suggests, he’s a Group horse in a handicap and can be put ‘anywhere’ in the race.
In fields this size, only two low drawn have won in the decade – both from stall 4 – and the rest have come, mostly down the outside, from gates 7, 10, 11 (twice) and 15.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: Front-runner Busatto should make sure there is no hanging about and Abseil has to beat mainly lower-class animals, with half a dozen of them only capable in class 4.
If there is a turn-up, it could be Velox, another dark horse. Velox (11.5 on BETDAQ this morning). is better than the bare form for a shrewdie trainer whose yard has just come to hand (current winning score: 3-6).
4.00 Epsom (THE OAKS) Aidan O’Brien has already landed a big-odds treble in this race in that his three runners are every one of them drawn below 8, where six out of 10 Oaks winners come from.
When I did my Oaks ABC (Daqman Archive, Tuesday), I chose for value on BETDAQ (43.0) the rapid-improver Anipa, only for her to get gate 16 of 17. She’ll need to be pushed into an early position up the hill and that could use her up.
So, too, Honor Bound (in 15, hooded first time), the half-sister to Treasure Beach, who won the Lingfield trial, and Frankie Dettori’s mount, the Dunlop-trained Amazing Maria, by the same sire as the French Derby winner, The Grey Gatsby, but from a yard missing strike badly.
Just now hit form (10011) is Luca Cumani, but his hope, Volume, is also hung out to dry, widest of all in stall 17, out in the car park. The difference with this one is that she can afford to give ground away, as a massive stayer on the dam’s side of her family. It could even help this big filly, if she doesn’t get unbalanced down the hill.
Luck in the draw it might have been for Hughie Morrison and Marsh Daisy in gate 5 but their Pivotal filly needs rain, and the dice seem to have fallen instead for Rennaisance man, Kieren Fallon, who needed the rain to stay away – and the forecasters say it will – for Ihtimal, snugly enstalled in 7.
There’s hope but no guarantee that Ihtimal will get the trip – the UAE Oaks is only 1m 2f – but Fallon thinks there will be no problem on a sound surface, and she can be switched off until asked for her turn of foot.
But surely O’Brien can’t fail to make a huge impact, gifted stalls 2, 3 and 4 consecutively, as if loaded up for a practice start on the Ballydoyle gallops, with Marvellous, Palace and Dazzling side by side by side.
Dazzling, a known front-runner, seems sure to set the pace under Seamie Heffernan, and Joseph O’Brien’s choice suggests that he thinks Palace was disappointing behind Marvellous in the Irish 1,000 Guineas.
Perhaps she was but that was on very soft ground and sons of daughters of Fastnet Rock have massively better form on good to soft (33% success rate), when there’s cut but it’s not deep.
As for Tarfasha, O’Brien should know where he stands with her, since Dazzling was the pacemaker when she won the Blue Wind. The second horse was exposed and hadn’t won since her maiden.
Taghrooda was all the rage after winning the Pretty Poly but the second and third have been beaten standing still by Marsh Daisy (still perhaps a bit inexperienced) and Volume.
Volume made all the running in the Swettenham trial at Newbury, showing a high cruising speed and very strong at the finish, though ‘beating nothing’.
She has Cup horses in her pedigree and, though Richard Hughes thought she wouldn’t handle Epsom, Luca Cumani, who had such serious disappointments in this race, placing without winning, has been tempted back after 23 years.
DAQMAN’S 1-2-3 VERDICT: 1 Marvellous, 2 Volume, 3 Anipa.
Marvellous has the credentials of another O’Brien winner of this race, in the footsteps of Imagine, Shatoush, Alexandrova and Was. She has a fine turn of foot.
Quite a different animal is Volume, a relentless galloper, whose 22.0 on BETDAQ this morning is ‘the wrong price’ about a stamina filly who has forced trainer-in-form Luca Cumani out of Oaks retirement. Much depends on Richard Hughes steering of this big, long-striding sort.
By the way, I try to tell it how it is, and state clearly my over-the-cornflakes knowledge of the ground when making my selections.
I don’t believe in fairies (nor in the half-life ‘facts’ of intellectual bullies; I admit to dark horses, but can’t accept the ignorance in the very terminology, ‘dark matter’).
DAQMAN’S BETS (stakes raised to win 30 points on each bet, unless otherwise stated).
BET 6pts win MANGO DIVA (1.35 Epsom)
BET 3pts win CLON BRULEE (2.10 Epsom)
BET 8pts win (nap) GREGORIAN (2.45 Epsom)
BET 11pts win ABSEIL and 2.8pts win VELOX (3.20 Epsom)
BET 7.5pts win MARVELLOUS, 1.5pts win and place VOLUME, and, already advised, 1pt win ANIPA at 43.0 (4.00 Epsom)
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