FOUR MORE WINNING BETS FOR HIGH-FLYING DAQMAN: Daqman landed four more winning bets yesterday from four winners plus his seventh successful lay out of nine. His winners included Flying Applause (WON 3-1) and a double on Barolo Top (WON evens) and Executive’s Hall (WON 11-8).
 
FABULOUS CURRENT FORM SEQUENCE: His best results per race, counting successful lays as a win, show this fabulous four-day sequence of success, translated as form figures: 13012111441201124211111.

TODAY: HOW TO FIND MORE BETDAQ ROYAL ASCOT VALUE: His final look at Royal Ascot race-spotting a week in advance suggests Betdaq value bets are available in the Coronation Stakes.

TOMORROW: JACKPOT BETS AMONG LUCKY SEVEN MEETINGS: As with all quality racing, Royal Ascot will of course, see some of the bigger Daqman punts, and he is likely to flex his jackpot muscles at York or Sandown on a day of seven meetings tomorrow.

Same-again racing is your key to success. The stats reveal patterns in racing which are so consistent they are hard to believe. I’ve talked about the draw, the age difference and trainer skills in the lead up to Royal Ascot. Now here are race patterns which reveal how quality in the horse dictates results time and time again, almost like clockwork.

There are currently 26 left in next Friday’s Coronation Stakes but past results suggest that, despite all the potential idiosyncracies of trainer selection (Aidan O’Brien still has six left in), the race is, in fact, among only five fillies.

In the past eight years, six winners had been first, second or fifth in the Newmarket 1,000 Guineas. In the entire decade, only one winner did not fill those places in that English fillies’ Classic, or the first two in the French version.

In theory, on the recent stats, it’s 3-1 on that the winner will come from (Betdaq offers are at the time of writing): 7.6 Together, 8.0 Maqaasid, 13.0 Nova Hawk, 24.0 Barefoot Lady or 26.0 Havant.

Now let’s look at the King Edward V11 Stakes on the same day. It’s traditionally the ‘Ascot Derby’ for those not quite up to Epsom Derby standard. Surely, then, the winner must be a horse to follow?

Absolutely not; no way! The ‘nearly horse’ not good enough for Epsom remains a nearly horse, and is one to avoid – one to lay – stepped up from this Group 2 to subsequent Group-1 big races, or even remaining at level two.

Would you believe that, in the last six years, the winner has then been fourth every single time in attempts at five major races, as follows, consecutively: 4th Irish Derby, 4th St Leger, 4th Eclipse, 4th Irish Derby, 4th Jockey Club Stakes, 4th Grand Prix de Paris.

Racing is all about class – class of horse, class of race, class of trainer – and, once you bet with that in mind, you are a long, long way ahead of the crowd.

TODAY: As I’ve so often said, just betting in a classier race will improve your chances of winning for several reasons. Here are two of them: horses at a higher level are more consistent, much more likely to repeat their form (as you’ve seen in those Ascot stats); secondly, the better the race, the more punters get involved and the stronger the market.

I remember Timeform’s Phill Bull, racing’s great educator, producing figures to prove that punters want quality. They didn’t listen then and they don’t listen now.

Another mentor of mine, Paul Major, warned in ‘Horse Sense’ never to bet below ‘C level’. That’s class-3 racing, as it is today. Horses below that level simply don’t have the constitution to repeat good runs, almost certainly not back to back.

So it is that I would be suspicious of last-time-out winners in the class-5 races this afternoon at Sandown (5.05) and at Goodwood tonight (9.00). But, generally, racing is of goodish quality at all meetings today, class-4 or better, except at Chepstow.

TONIGHT: 6.00 Aintree (Betdaq The Betting Exchange Handicap Chase) There’s nothing new here either: it’s the same old repetitious NH-season problem of whether a Nicky Henderson horse – in this case Restless d’Artaix – can bounce straight back after a massive absence (825 days).

The betting early doors says not – he’s 13.5 – but Henderson’s current strike rate (58% win and place) says beware. And, to make matters worse, Peter Bowen brings back Mizen Raven after 218 days with his yard showing a 50% win-and-place strike-rate. In a sense that’s even better than Henderson’s, since Nicky’s is based on 12 runners in the last fortnight, Peter Bowen’s on 24.

Mizen Raven is also easy to back but the indications are stronger that he’s ‘going for it’ today, since he is visored first time, whereas Restless d’Artaix has shown all his best form on soft ground. Mizen Raven has run a place 13 times from the last 16 races he’s finished, and looks good each way at 10.0 this morning.

Paper-favourite Marleybow (lay) is also consistent but is far too often the bridesmaid, having landed only one chase from 13, a sole success from three years and five months racing. Checkerboard’s stable is out of form; Presentandcorrect and Keenan’s Future are vulnerable to younger horses.

The young improver is no doubt I Need A Hero, with Richard Johnson a jockey to get the best out of him. He temporarily escapes a couple of pounds of the handicapper’s punishment for winning well at Wetherby in this class last week and has won around this trip.

7.05 Aintree (betdaq.co.uk Handicap Chase) Seven out of nine places in the three years of this race have gone to horses carrying 10st 13lb or lower, and there has been no winner carrying more.

Diamond Frontier is a front-runner who handles the surface but the Howard Johnson yard is out of form and the grey is easy to back, as I write, 10.0 on the Daq from a forecast 6-1.

Sky Calling, Digital Media, Quito De Tresor and War Party are high in the handicap now, and Ela Re is 12. I’m choosing from Sunday City, Kikos and Exulto.

Sunday City hasn’t won over this short a trip for four years and is unlikely to have the speed for Aintree, whereas Kikos was beaten only a neck over CD earlier this month. However, Kikos was 18-lengths second of only four runners in this race last year (Quito de Tresor third) and I just prefer Exulto.

Not like me to fancy the bridesmaid but the entire has won over hurdles on turning tracks like this one at Southwell and Wincanton, and the sequence of places in chases has been his getting his fencing ability together. Surely an improver at six, from a stable in form and in the right place in this handicap, as we’ve seen: 9.8 on Betdaq.

DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 6.6pts win (nap) CHORIZO (4.10 Market Rasen)
BET 2.2pts win and place MR OPTIMISTIC (4.25 York)
BET 3.1pts win MARKAZI (4.35 Sandown)
LAY to win 10pts MARLEYBOW, plus 2.2pts win and place MIZEN RAVEN and 1.5pts win (saver) I NEED A HERO (6.00 Aintree)
BET 2.2pts win and place EXULTO (7.05 Aintree)