GO ON! HE BOLTS HOME AT 9-2: Daqman yesterday made it five winners from 10 races in two days, so he’s striking at 50% as we move to the opening card of the three-day Newmarket July Festival:
WON 9-2 Go On Go On Go On
WON 9-4 Baron Bolt
EXOSPHERE A FORTUNE HORSE: Today features the return of Fortune Cookies, with one 20-point bet – Exosphere (3.15) – and the head-to-head with the Racing Post value column in the 2.40, 3.15 and 3.45 races (scores update Daqman 53, Pricewise 24).
PLAY PLATITUDE AS STOUTE IMPROVER
2.10 Newmarket (Bahrain Trophy) After the Golden (Horn) year of £5m prizemoney, champion-trainer John Gosden is down to a 15% strike rate in 2016 and would hardly be good for a million so far, had he not done so well on AW.
I mention it because this is a Gosden race (form figures 11131 in the last five years) but he doesn’t even have a runner, and fields just one horse from my notebook (in the 2.40) on the entire card.
How could Gosden farm this race? Answer: he knew that it invariably (9 out of 10) goes to ‘nearly horses’ in the Derby trials or the Derby itself.
Step forward Prize Money, second in the Cocked Hat Stakes at Goodwood; Harrison (eighth in the Dante); Housesofparliament and Platitude (third and fourth in the Dee Stakes).
The interloper is Shabeeb, who will like the firm ground. But the snag for him and several of these is whether they will get this 1m 5f.
Saeed Bin Suroor has been first and second in the Bahrain from just two runners and Prize Money certainly has the class, subsequently runner-up at Ascot to the Eclipse winner, Hawkbill.
Harrison, son of a St Leger winner, and Platitude (dam a 1m 6f winner) seem best qualified on breeding among those at the front if the market. Platitude gave Harrison 6 b at Royal Ascot and beat him three lengths so must be the selection. At 6.0 on BETDAQ this morning, could be another late improver for Sir Michael Stoute.
ARDAD DUMPED 15 PREVIOUS WINNERS
2.40 Newmarket (July Stakes) Here’s the big Gosden hope for the meeting – Ardad – but this race is farmed by Team Hannon (141114), though Gosden won it last year with Shalaa, who would go on to remain unbeaten, landing the Prix Morny and Middle Park juveniles Groip-1 double.
The Hannon winner the year before, Ivawood, was placed in two Guineas, and there’s a big word for their Coventry Stakes runner-up Mehmas here today.
Snag is that the winner of the Coventry was a Ballydoyle horse, and the stable is represented today by Intelligence Cross, a War Front like last year’s precocious O’Brien two-year-old, Air Force Blue.
The next seven horses home behind Mehmas in the Coventry had all won their prep race, whereas the Intelligence Cross success at the Curragh was from maidens, so we have no idea what it amounts to.
On the same day as the Coventry, Ardad won the lower-class Windsor Castle Stakes (Listed) but with no fewer than FIFTEEN previous winners behind.
This is not a race that Ballydoyle wins, so I’m taking Ardad (4.0 BETDAQ best early mouse) to beat Mehmas. Whichever horse wins should go in my Fortune Cookies.
IT’S REDEMPTION DAY FOR EXOSPHERE
3.15 Newmarket (Princess Of Wale’s Stakes) Exosphere blew his rivals away in the Jockey Club Stakes at the Craven Meeting on the main course here, the Rowley Mile.
But, with the ground reported ‘too soft for the colt’ (that was afterwards, of course), Exosphere was well beaten 6-4 favourite in the Hardwicke, won by his stablemate Dartmouth for The Queen at Royal Ascot.
If Her Majesty had been short of a few bob, we might have said that Dartmouth’s 10-1 success as underdog to Exosphere was an old-fashioned coup, a kind of retro Ryan Price result (you’re too young; let it pass).
But in defence of the form, a certain R. Moore was swerving a royal winner (Peslier rode Dartmouth) and it certainly was a loose surface.
Let’s put it this way, Exosphere (the same R Moore) has a great chance of redeeming himself today on the forecast fast ground (good to firm) against the likes of The Grey Gatsby (not won beyond 10f but ground in his favour) and Big Orange, winner of this from Second Step last year but nine lengths adrift of Exosphere in the Jockey Club.
A good run for Harrison in the opener would be a pointer to Muntazah, the sole representative of the Classic generation, who was fourth, in front of Harrison, in the Dante.
Muntazah looks too big at 9.0 (the six three-year-olds in this in the decade have a 50% place strike rate).
18.5 PROJECTION IS THE HIDDEN HORSE
3.45 Newmarket Favourites have an appalling record with seven double-figure SPs in the decade, two of them 33-1.
Maybe it’s the draw. Only one winner came out of single-figure stalls in the last seven seasons, with horses drawn 15, 16, 15, 14, 11 and 10 all successful (most recent first).
Maybe it’s the weight. Only one out of 30 carrying 9st or more managed to win. Add these two stats together, and you’re choosing from only five horses.
I use stats like these in pricing up (assessing the value odds), so this race must surely be worth a Pot Of Gold Bet. But Show Stealer, who ticks the boxes, looks just about the right price at 11.0 offers on BETDAQ.
I’m worried that Bounce was hanging on the firmish ground when third to Taneen (Madrinho secpond) at Leicester and Taneen, alberit heavily penalised, ran away from them that day and is a Newmarket July course CD winner.
Chares Hills, who produced Magical Memory in this last year, has two good chances with Momentofmadness and Gunmetal, a front-runner who could be the salvation of the low stalls.
He could let in Light Music, who gets 7f, and could enjoy the change of going, likely to settle better than at Royal Ascot off this faster pace.
I could talk about half a dozen of these and still not name the winner. But the hidden horses include Priceless, well drawn and out of a sire whose progeny do much better on a sound surface. Has raced on soft so far.
Projection ‘could be anything’, put away for the better ground and with lines to form – through such as Mr Lupton and Humphrey Bogart – which put him in the front rank here.
VERDICT: My short-list in racecard order is Taneen (6.6 on BETDAQ this morning, Projection (18.5), Light Music (13.0), Priceless (42.00) and Show Stealer (11.5).
The final judgment is with the market, which tells me that Taneen is too short in a graveyard race for favourites, and Priceless is friendless, ‘over the betting weir’.
Sticking with the double-figure draw, I shall back Projection and Show Stealer.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 30 points)
BET 5pts win PLATITUDE (2.10 Newmarket)
BET 10pts win (nap) ARDAD (2.40 Newmarket)
BET 3.75pts win and place MUNTAZAH (Fortune Cookie: EXOSPHERE) (3.15 Newmarket)
BET 2.8pts win and place SHOW STEALER, and 1.7pts win and place PROJECTION (3.45 Newmarket)
£25 IN FREE BETS
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