VALUE START WITH BETDAQ AT 50% BETTER: Even if you like to take cash to the races, you should start your day with a Betdaq bet, warns Daqman, after last night’s massive take-out by Wolverhampton bookies, around 50% bigger than some of the Daq offers assessed at Lingfield and Southwell in his column today. Ayr has been abandoned.
The wolves were ravenous at the Polytrack meeting last night. The bookies bled punters dry in the Pure Nutrition Handicap at Wolverhampton. Pure nutrition? Starvation diet, more like, with an SP overround of 156%.
They shortened up half the field and ‘forgot’ to extend the other prices, thieving back more than half the stake you bet, if you had to accept the take-it-or-leave-it final return on the race.
Moral: if you are going racing, bet early on Betdaq to be sure of a value stake in the market. Take a position before going to the track where you might be closed down by market forces put in play by those with a vested interest in a poor SP.
Here’s a good angle on the day that will set you on the right track with Betdaq, particularly if you are looking for a race in which you might want more than one horse running for you. Get ahead of the game as follows:
Step 1: Pick one horse for a first position on the race and decide what sort of odds you can accept from your personal ‘pricing up’ of the field.
Step 2: Check out the overround at the top of the orange ‘back’ list for your race and wait until it is in the region of 110%.
Step 3: If the offers match or exceed your expectations, take them. That means you have already won twice over: you’ve got the odds you want and you got them in a punter-friendly market of around 110%, which is a further assurance that you were trading at decent value.
SOUTHWELL: The markets on three of the races were well settled by 8.30 a.m., with offers adding up to 107% on one race and 109% on the two others.
My plan, before I checked again at 9 o’clock, was to finish pricing up each race, ready to ‘clock’ the value odds and the false favourites.
Yes, don’t forget that, if you think the market leader is far too short, you can leave behind a lay. That favourite might be backable when you get to the track, in which case you could be able to get out or even reverse the situation, backing him at the races because he’s value, knowing you have cover from your morning lay.
But, heh, what’s this now in the Betdaq Handicap! It’s 8.50 a.m: the 12.20 Southwell is 104% in the orange and the horse with a red question mark on my card (meaning ‘this could be the one’) is 11.5.
That’s a big chance they’re taking with Ifonlyalfie. He’s won an Irish Point on fast ground and his recent hurdles runs will have him ready for this.
Trainer Chris Bealby, former assistant to Nicky Henderson, is just down the road near Grantham, and is near-25% with his chase runners at the track.
Ifonlyalfie gets nearly a stone from the favourite and the second favourite is 12 years old; both were successful last time out but neither has put back-to-back wins together before.
Von Galen has won only up the tough Towcester hill and found Southwell too fast for him last time out, runner-up in a very small field (13-year-old Gerrard behind), despite getting 26lb from the winner.
The 108% of the maiden at 1.55 is well enough, but the four front runners in the market are within two points of each other, and the ‘rags’ rarely count in such races.
The 2.30 is only 103%, despite a long-odds-on favourite but it’s hard to take a pot at Mister Dillon, even if you are a Clever Dick!
LINGFIELD: The Betdaq markets at 9.20 a.m. were 104%, 108, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110. Punter-friendly or what!
And the good news is that you have a quality race: the Felbridge Handicap (2.50) is class 2, and worth a double-figure prize, so bringing out the likes of Richard Fahey and Kevin Ryan.
All bar one of Fahey’s runners in the last seven days which have started 13-2 or less have finished in the frame – 43314203 – but only one has won, compared with Ryan’s form of 111 for all three starters at 8-1 or less.
In a 109% ‘book’ of offers this morning, Ryan’s Arganil was 19.0 and Dickie’s Lad 12.0, partly because of their outside draws. What About You, for Fahey, at 23.0 was better drawn but 3lb out of the handicap.
At class-2 level, you can expect the horses to run to form, whereas they are unlikely to do so in class-5 and class-6 races, which make up most midweek cards.
That means that, if you do think there’s a flaw in the market, you are three times lucky: you have value; you are in a punter-friendly Betdaq market; you have a ‘mistake’ where the odds are even better than they should be.
That needs confidence, and sprints shrink the value somewhat: a tardy start, for instance, can lose your contender vital lengths and momentum. There’s risk involved and risk means odds against.
In this big-field 6f race, with three potential front-runners, Dickie’s Lad, Thunderball and What About You, I would be inclined to delete those who seem to prefer 5f (Arganil and Piscean).
Capone has done some racing in class 2 but has never won higher than class 4. Secret Witness is still 10lb too high on winning form, and is raised 6lb for his recent CD second.
Cochabamba (stall 2) and Elna Bright (in 4) have both taken in Listed races this year; it’s against Cochabamba that she’s won only her maiden and against Elna Bright that he’s never scored off such a high mark.
Five Star Junior and What About You were separated by only half a length when sent to Dundalk in October, yet ‘Junior’ is 10.5 and What About You 23.0, with the Fahey three-year-old likely to improve.
I can’t get involved in the nursery (1.45), with only around a point separating four horses at the time of writing, but the 1m 4f handicap at 2.15 (overround 105%) is interesting because the Wolverhampton-winning favourite, Alshazah, is penalised 5lb and raised in class, so will need to improve to justify his market position, switched to Lingfield. Reem Star’s form is also in class 5.
Pittodrie Star is the one for an early play at 7.0: failed to get a run at Haydock, then found out by soft ground at Newbury but a gallant runner-up at Bath, giving 16lb to the winner.
Pittodrie Star’s AW form is 10001220. He’s been favourite twice and 4-1 or less four times in a row at Kempton and Lingfield. I expect him to be backed again today, making 7.0 a good early investment.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 1.9pts win and place IFONLYALFIE (12.20 Southwell)
BET 3.3pts win (nap) PITTODRIE STAR (2.15 Lingfield)
BET 0.9pts win and place WHAT ABOUT YOU (2.50 Lingfield)
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