WHO DARES AIM FOR THE BULL? DAQMAN! Daqman and Pricewise produced the goods big time yesterday, and you could now have had 93 returns this Flat season from following their value battle. Daqman leads 75-18, now 303 points ahead of his rival to a single-unit stake. Daqman’s winners included a win-50 bull’s-eye. He dared win!
WON 7-1 WHO DARES WINS (from 10.0 on BETDAQ)
WON 13-2 DESERT ENCOUNTER
TODAY COULD BE AN O’BRIEN CLASSIC: On a day when Aidan O’Brien has laid his stall out for a sensational sequence at Naas, in which he runs seeming 2018 Classic contenders, Daqman looks – today and tomorrow – at the enigma which is Ballydoyle. Does a Classic winner run today?
THE BALLYDOYLE COOK BOOK..
2.00 Naas Brother, where art thou!! Three more Galileos start their careers for Aidan O’Brien in this race. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent punter.
For Capri, now read Cypress Creek, one of his brothers. For Found, read James Cook. They’re brothers, too. Then comes the usual guessing game..
Is Flag Of Honour the outsider of the Ballydoyle trio? In my opinion, there’s no such thing with this outfit. There are contenders and pacemakers. Only you don’t always know which are the pacemakers and which the contenders.
With two-year-olds, even the form, judged on the running of the race, is suspect. Aidan O’Brien youngsters can improve massively for a run.
If you had to make an educated guess and put money on it – that’s called betting, but in this case gambling – you would assume that James Cook is the one today, with Ryan Moore up, tongue-tied as if to open up the accelerator, and well drawn in stall 2, alongside a speedy sort, Loving A Boom, a relative of Equiano.
25-1 ATHENA COULD IMPROVE
2.30 Naas (Park Stakes) Two more Galileos and a Camelot line up for this Park Stakes, a reminder of mixed fortunes, even when you are letting loose the cream of juveniles. And a reminder of burnt betting fingers!
Finn McCool in the opener and Coolmore in this one had their swan-songs on this day. Despite their descent from Galileo, their descent – contra plenty of Ballydoyle ballyhoo – was an early one into oblivion.
The 2015 English Oaks winner, Qualify, was the strangest success story of this Park Stakes for Aidan O’Brien. Her form fell away after winning this and she turned up at Epsom a 50-1 shot.
But she won and seemingly earned her place in the Irish Derby. But her modest sixth of eight to Jack Hobbs at the Curragh was the last time we saw her on a racecourse.
Did I say O’Brien two-year-olds can improve ‘massively’? In which case, there is hope for Athena, down the field at Cork but in a race from which winner, Magical, and second, Mary Tudor, finished first and third in the Debutante Stakes at the Curragh last month.
Runner-up Happily (also Ballydoyle!) turned the tables on Magical in the Moyglare, with the Chesham Stakes winner, September, only third.
Most likely to foil Mary Tudor today are the seeming O’Brien principals, Ballet Shoes, only seventh in the Moyglare, and Sizzling, May Hill fourth, but both are pretty much exposed.
We don’t know about today’s soft-heavy ground for Juliet Foxtrot, the Goodwood maiden winner (beat nothing well that day), so I’ll put my fingers in the Ballydoyle fire and have a dabble on Athena (26.0 on BETDAQ this morning).
QUIET PLEASE FOR ALPHABET
3.00 Naas (Loughbrown Stakes) Forgotten Rules, Toe The Line and Jennies Jewel turned up to tackle the youngsters in this last year but were mugged by a three-year-old.
I can see that happening again today with O’Brien’s Park Hill fifth Wild Irish Rose in receipt of 13lb and five years from Renneti, who has proven stamina on the ground but could be foiled by a sprint finish in such a small, tactical field.
4.00 Naas (Renaissance Stakes) Some decent sprinters have won this, and last year’s runner-up, Flight Risk, is among five rated 110 or 111.
That’s how close it is, but that’s for minor honours if you accept the 116 mark for Quiet Reflection, despite her absence all summer. Seven wins out of nine, including the Haydock Sprint a year ago on heavy, certainly warrant such a rating, and Karl Burke thinks she’s worth the trip over today.
I keep spending some loose change on morning-glory Peace Offer, a one-time Guineas hope who has his first run in a sprint today: 28.0 on BETDAQ.
O’Brien stablemate Cougar Moutain has shown all his best form on a sound surface and is 04000000 when there is give in the ground.
So Alphabet, the seeming first string of O’Brien’s with Ryan Moore up here we go again), could be the big danger to Quiet Reflection after her length defeat by Caravaggio in the Flying Five on soft–heavy at the Curragh over the minimum recently.
Her form on such a surface is 132, placed twice at Group level. Whereas, we worry about Quiet Reflection’s absence, the concern with Alphabet is whether she will have recovered from the Flying Five, run only 14 days ago. The 7.2 on BETDAQ seems to take care of that concern, and present us with a good win-and-place bet.
WARRIOR? I’M A WORRIER..
5.00 Naas (Beresford Stakes) We’ve played the Ballydoyle hand so far; now here’s the big deal. After six wins in a row in this – 16 out of 21 – O’Brien fields three of the five runners in the Beresford, possibly best of the tests for two-year-olds so far.
Is one of the three a Capri (won this last year) or a St Nicholas Abbey (2009), or, as with the two earlier juvenile races, is there a winner to forget like Geoffrey Chaucer (2013) who never took another race?
This is where we came in. Do we believe the Ballydoyle form we know? Do we follow Ryan Moore’s choice? Which of them will be pacemaker?
Saxon Warrior beat nothing well at the Curragh but was visually impressive. Delano Roosevelt and Kew Gardens are the Galileos of the trio, Kew Gardens having finished second at Leopardstown, just in front of Delano Roosevelt when he was 10-1 and Roosevelt was 11-10 favourite (here we go again).
With this example of the Ballydoyle enigma in our minds, can we really bet odds on Saxon Warrior? It’s not even a safe bet which of the three will set the pace.
But I’ve gone in on an O’Brien rout today – a bit of wild Irish rose up from my ancestry! – so will include Saxon Warrior in my Daq Multiples
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 20, minimum one point)
2.00 NAAS
BET 10pts win JAMES COOK
2.30 NAAS
BET 1pts win and place ATHENA
3.00 NAAS
BET 12pts win (nap) WILD IRISH ROSE
4.00 NAAS
BET 3.25pts win and place ALPHABET
BET 1pt win and place PEACE ENVOY
DAQ MULTIPLES
BET 1pt Ballydoyle yankee: JAMES COOK (2.00), WILD IRISH ROSE (3.00), ALPHABET (4.00) and SAXON WARRIOR (5.00), all at Naas.
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