INSIDE BETTING CIRCLES: DAY 2: Daqman talked about the trainer’s art yesterday. Now he finds a formula for spotting the best jockeys? Is it style, skill, judgment, daring? Yes, all of those but, says our man, the measure of success is how he improves the horse.
THREE BETS ON MONDAY: DAQMAN previews Monday’s racing with a NAP in the opener at Ayr. As always trainer form plays a big part of his calculations.
THE STAR RIDER IMPROVES HORSES
There are many jockeys on the same horse. There’s the official rider, wearing the owner’s silks to his or her personal design of the 18 permitted colours.
Then there are the grandstand jockeys and the armchair riders at home, thousands of judgmental punters who want someone to praise or blame when their bet comes up or goes sailing down the Swanee into a world of wasted opportunity.
Well, did the man, or occasionally the woman, on your horse strive to get ‘the best possible placing,’ as the rules demand?
What constitutes a non-trier? Stewards generally ignore the running of two-year-olds until they have earned a rating from two or three starts as ‘maidens.’
But the ‘quiet run’ can also be skillfully engineered with older horses to manipulate their handicap place.
Is that so ‘wrong’ when sometimes, particularly in sprints with blanket finishes, a pound or two can make the difference between winning and losing? How to spot it.
When you look at the TV pictures, it must be a case of ‘vision on’ in your head, not simply switching on the box and enjoying a race, concentrating on the business end.
You need to go back, go forward, reprising the runs of each contestant. How do you rate each rider? Does he look confident? Is he getting the best possible placing? You should have determined from his form whether the horse needed cover or would be better off given his head. What really happened?
When the money’s down, the jockey’s position in the race, his every move, is vital. Even if he doesn’t want to lead, he still needs to get out of the gate smartly so that he can relax the horse into the right place at the right time.
Is the jockey a deep-seat driver or does he crouch and use rhythm? Does he ride a finish without unbalancing the horse? Does his mount look dead beat at the end of a race, or is he running on after the winning post, wanting to go again?
Most important of all: check back on the ratings. Did the jockey improve on the rating of the horse in that race, or did the animal run below expectations?
Start with just one rider – perhaps your own personal favourite – and make up a table: on the left the jockey’s name, then the name of the track and distance of the race; horse and trainer; then, finally, the official rating (OR) of the horse before the race and after (when it’s published for it’s next event).
Now you have a goldmine of information, a heads-up on the truth about the jockeys and the horses.
You can, with enough information tables, tell me which track the jockey rides best, at which distance, on which horses, for which trainer. But, far and away the best figure is one which you don’t see published in any newspaper or online survey.
You can tell me which jockey IMPROVES the rating of his rides, what the average improvement is, and in what circumstances he gets them to run above themselves. He may not even be a star name but he’s your star rider.
REGULATIONS POINT TO FAHEY WIN
1.55 Ayr Now here’s a thing. A northern race contested solely by northern trainers with no southern raiders up to plunder the £3,881 first prize.
It looks set to go to Richard Fahey’s Regulator. Just to prove the north/south divide also works in reverse, Fahey landed the valuable Super Sprint Stakeds at Newbury on Saturday with the hugely impressive Bengali Boys who scorched home by six lengths on the soft ground.
Regulator may well be a winner without a penalty as he was forced to switch in the closing stages of his debut run at Beverley when a three quarters of a length second to Ghayadh. He may well have won with a clear run and encouragingly was staying on well over the stiff Beverley five furlongs suggesting the six at a much flatter Ayr will be ideal.
Ghayadh went on to finish fourth at Newbury and the fourth horse in that race Albert Street was a subsequent second at Hamilton suggesting the form has a solid look to it.
Kevin Ryan’s Jungle Room was only mid-division on his Doncaster debut but should know more about the game today.
A bigger danger may come from the Michael Dods trained Rossall who started favourite for his debut at Beverley (the other division of the race that Regulator ran in). He too had a troubled run and would have finished a lot closer. The Darlington based trainer had a winner at Redcar yesterday and is now running at a strike-rate of 4/41 in the last 14 days.
2.10 Cartmel Locally based James Moffatt trained an easy winner here on Saturday’s card and can continue the good work with Golden Town.
He was a dual winner on the flat when owned by Godolphin and whilst it’s fair to say he hasn’t set the world alight over jumps he has been contesting better races than this and deserves a first win over timber.
He was third in a class 4 here at Cartmel last time out and the drop in grade should prove the key. Moffatt also runs Think Ahead who was pulled up on his jumps debut at Newcastle.
Dance Rock has a flat pedigree but didn’t show much in that sphere on his only started at Bath.
7.45 Windsor The race of the day, a class 3, but it’s depleted with three non runners.
Roger Varian has hit a rich vein of form (5 from 13 over last 14 days) and should add to that through Atletico who has been contesting better races and should appreciate the give in the ground.
The handicapper has dropped him a pound since his most recent fifth in an Ascot class 3.
DAQMAN’S BETS:
BET 9pts win (nap) REGULATOR (1.50 Ayr)
BET 6pts win GOLDEN TOWN (2.10 Cartmel)
BET 4pts win ATLETICO (7.45 Windsor)
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