THREE BULL’S-EYE BETS TODAY: Daqman takes some mighty swings at the layers today with two 12.0 shots in the Thyestes Chase and a 15.0 punt on the World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival with another Gowran Park runner.
FIVE CONSECUTIVE BANKERS? All his outsiders are win-50 Bull’s-Eye Bets – current profit 57.50 – and Daqman also bids for his fifth consecutive winning banker with a 20-pointer at Fakenham.
4-1 ROAD TO THE DAY’S PROFIT: After the nap fell while in the lead at Catterick yesterday, No Through Road (WON 4-1) saved his bacon at Ayr; in fact, put the day in profit by 10 points at SP.
TAKE BRIAR HILL’S WORLD HURDLE 15.0
2.15 Gowran Park (Galmoy Hurdle) Zaidpour, winner of this in 2012, tries to roll back the years. He had a soft seasonal debut at Navan in November but fell in the Hattons Grace (which he also won in 2012) and, in the Christmas Hurdle, was a long way adrift of Monksland whom he’d beaten in the race two years earlier.
It all points to Monksland, but Ruby Walsh prefers former Cheltenham Champion Bumper winner Briar Hill, who was stone last in that Christmas race.
The proverbial ‘he’ll come on a ton’ – which the Press now insist on spelling ‘tonne’ – applies to Briar Hill’s run that day and, at seven, he still has a chance in the big time.
Briar Hill is 15.0 for the World Hurdle in the BETDAQ ante-post lists, but as low as 10-1 with one of the so-called Big Four bookies. If you are a believer (Ruby Walsh clearly is), take the 15.0 and pay for it with a bet on him today.
3.15 Gowran Park (Thyestes Chase, see below)
ORDER IN: 1 The Job Is Right, 2 Sadler’sflaure, 3 Djakadam, 4 Gallant Oscar
THYESTES JOB HORSE AT 12.0 ON BETDAQ
It’s sometimes as easy as ABC. But not when trends keep on taking a new turn. Or when they amount to very little. For instance, I see that, in one published trends list for today’s Thyestes Chase, it blandly declares: ‘Nine out of 10 winners had had a run since Christmas.’
Thanks a lot: all in today’s field have had a run since Christmas! Except Djakadam. And he’s the pivotal contender in today’s Gowran Park handicap.
He was overfaced in the Newbury Hennessy, on the admission of his own trainer, Willie Mullins, yet – whatever the result today – the only place he can really go in Ireland after this is the Leopardstown Hennessy (February 8). Then, whatever has happened, it’s Cheltenham next stop.
But is Djakadam a Ryanair runner, or is he Gold Cup material? Willie wants to think of him in the gold seam but won’t find out unless he tests him against good horses.
Between not being ready for the Newbury Hennessy and taking them on in the Leopardstown Hennessy are more than 10 weeks of mental and physical growth for a young horse like this. Plus today’s race.
It’s normally a rough and tough contest, the Thyestes, requiring guts and far more stamina than the 3m 1f would suggest, which is why it went to back-to-back Liverpool Grand National winners, Hedgehunter and Numbersixvalverde.
My heart and yours would love to see a star born here, but that those two National winners carried only 10st 2lb and 10st 6lb in this Thyestes has my head telling my heart: keep your Djakadam cash in your BETDAQ wallet! He’s lumbered with top weight today.
And what stats I might have presented in an ABC guide could have included this: three six-year-olds have tried it and failed miserably in this race since 1994, two of them losing favourites, the last one, Colm Murphy’s The Westener Boy in 2013, fell at 4-1 under Tony McCoy.
Let’s try another trend: nine out of 10 winners had won over three miles or more. Once again, most of today’s field have. Damningly for Djakadam, seven of the nine just below him in the handicap have. He hasn’t.
His longest winning trip has been 21 furlongs and he faded to finish last but one in that Newbury Hennessy over 26-plus. Today is 25.
Maybe the most important stat is that 10 out of 10 winners had run in fewer than eight handicap chases. Only in checking that out, do we do a double-take when we look at Djakadam (with 4), Gallant Oscar and The Job Is Right (with 5 each), then compare with the others.
They clearly have massive potential, alongside some of these which have been around for 33, 26 (twice), 24, 23 and 20 chases, totally exposed to the handicapper yet still rated up to 13lb less than this trio, some of them out of the original handicap proper.
The weights trends have changed – typical of modern handicaps – from lightweights to those higher in the ratings, just what happened with the five-length Foxrock romp in the Leopardstown Chase on Sunday.
Foxrock was only six when the moral, runner-up giving the winner a lump of weight, in the PP Chase at Leopardstown the day after Boxing Day.
The fourth horse, putting in a run 18lb behind Foxrock, was The Job Is Right. He gets 15lb from Djakadam, who would have received 3lb from Foxrock had that one run in today’s race.
So the handicapper can boast that he’s done his job well but if, and only if, he has Djakadam’s mark right at 145. I make his last two completed runs 128 and 138.
But the handicapper himself says that The Job Is Right has done 130. Taking that, and Djakadam off 138, The Job is Right wins today by seven lengths. If Djakadam is, in fact, correctly poised on 145, it’s a dead-heat.
Gallant Oscar has shot up to 133, largely for winning the Munster National in March last year, but hasn’t been seen in a chase – three runs over hurdles this season – since unseating in the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse in April.
On collateral form, he is also seven lengths better than Djakadam, on the same basis as The Job Is Right, but has to give the Job 3lb.
If this convoluted maths is wrong, it will be because both The Job Is Right (aged seven) and Dkajadam are entitled to improve at their young age. Until we know differently, the value at the BETDAQ odds, then, is with The Job Is Right at 12.0, more than double the Djakadam offers.
Blinkers first time and A P McCoy didn’t help Groody Hill on the last day – well behind The Job is Right – and the hard-to-win-with Goonyella has scored just the once since 2012. Either stayer could have a rare good day but both are riskier than the offers of 12.0 as I write.
Make A Track would be a thumping farewell for Charlie Swan but the alternative for me is Sadler’sflaure, multiple French winner who made an excellent start for Jessica Harrington, second at Punchestown and actually in front of Foxrock.
Foxrock was having his first run back, but then ‘Sadlers’ was having his first completed start for more than a year and in a foreign country. Tasty 12.5.
TWENTY-TWO CAN MAKE IT BANKER FIVE
2.50 Warwick This 3m 2f hurdle looks a massive slog in the mud, for which dual Fakenham winner Vision Du Coeur (up a total of 23lb) has drifted like a lonely dog on a raft this morning to 7.6 on BETDAQ (paper forecast 5-2 fav).
Punters reckon it’s a good opportunity for new-favourite The Tourard Man (5.1), who has run well on a sounder surface over today’s trip, but his Irish points wins were on the soft.
3.00 Fakenham Ten minutes later at Fakenham, TwentyTwo’s Taken is hooded first time for what the stable expects to be a winning hurdles debut and I expect to be my fifth consecutive winning banker.
Connections went to £150,000 to secure the dual bumper winner in Ireland who can hardly be blamed for failing to upset Lyrical Theatre’s hat-trick, with that one now being prepped for a tilt at the Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham.
DAQMAN’S BETS (normally to win 20 points, but banker at fixed stake and bull’s-eye bets to win 50).
BET 8pts win BRIAR HILL (2.15 Gowran Park)
BET 5pts win THE TOURARD MAN (2.50 Warwick)
BANKER: BET 20pts win (nap) TWENTYTWO’S TAKEN (3.00 Fakenham)
BULL’S-EYE BETS (win 50): 4.5pts win on each SADLER’SFLAURE and THE JOB IS RIGHT (3.15 Gowran Park)
ANTE-POST BULL’S-EYE BET (to win 50): 3.5pts win BRIAR HILL (World Hurdle, Cheltenham, at 15.0)
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