NAP AND 6-1 BULL’S-EYE HITS FOR DAQMAN: Bring on the quality racing, and Daqman brings you the quality tips. He landed three winners among seven placed yesterday in a typical Saturday romp, scoring with his nap and earning 56 points profit
WON 6-1 QUICK LOOK (Silver Trophy bull’s-eye bet)
WON 2-1 SAUNTER (nap)
WON 7-4 HAMADA
3RD 9-1 GRAPHITE STORM (w/p from 15.5 on BETDAQ)
NOW HE’S 191 POINTS UP ON PRICEWISE: Five Saturday losers plunged Pricewise to an all-time low this season of MINUS 100 points, as Daqman hiked his level-stakes profit in the value challenge to PLUS 91 points – so 191 clear – with their scores in feature races (selected in the Pricewise racing Post column) now 60-19.
JOHNSTON ‘GOLD’ GOES FOR GLORY
2.30 Pontefract Mark Johnston needs one winner to overtake Richard Hannon Senior’s all-time high of 4,193.
And Lynwood Gold (3.55 in BETDAQ early mouse) has been dropped in the handicap and, correspondingly, down a grade to class-3. His principal opponent, Tor, has a hill to climb, raised to his highest mark.
3.35 Pontefract A high draw may have scuppered the chances of Foxtrot Lady, and prompts the question: how good might Zain Hana be?
The one that beat her on the July Course last month was well beaten yesterday but she was giving weight that day and the handicapper reckons she’s improved 11lb since the mark she started off then.
Dance Diva has already won at Listed level twice and won’t mind any rain. I took some 5.6 but I’ll see how the market responds to Zain Hana (9.8 as I write).
4.05 Pontefract The BETDAQ betting (a value scene at 105% overround) has Georgian Manor clear favourite, as another Stoute improver.
But, with Knighted likely to go off a cracking pace, I fancy Crownthorpe’s experience to win the day at a tempting 8.0.
MARMELO TO BOOST AUSSIE CLAIMS
1.35 Deauville (Prix Kergorlay) Hughie Morrison gives himself two chances of completing a hat-trick in this Group-2 marathon test, a furlong short of 2m, on soft ground.
His pair are previous winners, Marmelo last year and Nearly Caught the year before, only fourth in 2017 but back to form in the Listed Coral Marathon at Sandown last month before being short-headed by Holdthasigreen at Maisons-Laffitte.
Deauville expects ‘light cloud and a gentle breeze’ this afternoon, which it is hoped will dry things out for Nearly Caught (Olivier Peslier).
The younger Marmelo (Christophe Soumillon), rated 4lb superior to Nearly Caught, and a winner on most surfaces, returned to Group-2 winning form on the last day and is on his own hat-trick mission here.
A few pounds further back, Willie Mullins’ Renneti is nine now and needs rain, but was back to form, though rested, since runner-up in the extreme-distance Queen Alexandra at Royal Ascot.
Marmelo and Andre Fabre’s Casterton are bound for the Melbourne Cup, in which Marmelo was an honourable ninth last year.
BALLYDOYLE CAN LAND THE MORNY
2.45 Deauville (Prix Morny) This two-year-old test has been won in the decade by raiders from outsider France (9-10).
But the fires lit under it by Wesley Ward (No Nay Never and Lady Aurelia) and John Gosden (the luckless Shalaa) are missing this year.
Yet the ratings – you need something around 114 – insist that Pretty Pollyanna (115) is up to Lady Aurelia’s standards and can dismiss the colts as she did.
She certainly looked the part when she stormed seven-lengths clear in a Group 2 at the July meeting, with the runner-up taking the Princess Margaret Stakes (Group 3) at Ascot, but has raced only three times and all on firm ground.
A son of No Nay Never, Land Force has progressed well after his third in the Norfolk, taking the Tipperary Stakes and then the Richmond, stepping up 7lb overall.
Land Force seems to be on the right side of the split in the Ballydoyle camp between those keeping their form and the under-the-weather bloc. He’s been worked gently and away from the main yard since Goodwood.
Unusually, Pretty Pollyanna has two more of her own sex to contend with. Both Comedy and Signora Cabello are sequence winners.
John Quinn’s Signora (he won the race with The Wow Signal in 2014) has Frankie Dettori tr ing to turn over the colts again, as he did in the Robert Papin (Sexy Metro second, True Mason third) but again her four-timer has come on a sound surface.
But it may have dried out too much for Sexy Metro, a winner on soft and heavy in his first two starts, and Karl Burke insists that True Mason will improve.
Marie’s Diamond is nearly half a stone behind these on the ratings and didn’t have the luck in running required at Goodwood when a length off Land Force at the line.
The colts usually win this and I’ll go with Land Force to light up the Ballydoyle prospects for 2018 after a lacklustre Classics season this year by its own very high standards.
FOX FANCIED FOR ENGLAND AGAIN
3.20 Deauville (Prix Jean Romanet) The English are five out of six in this fillies’ and mares’ Group 1 and four-year-olds 9-10. That’s a double pointer to Urban Fox.
She’s another one today making a quickish reappearance after quick ground at Goodwood, and her form with ‘soft’ in the going return is 44. So needs that Deauville surface to have dried out.
Rhododendren was one of those affected by the Ballydoyle bug. Aidan O’Brien reckons her back in good form now, though he’s put the blinkers on, which suggests there are other problems.
She won the Opera on the soft at the Arc meeting (Lady Frankel third) last autumn but has added only the Lockinge this term and has been out of sorts since.
Bateel, rated 4lb in front of Urban Fox, is on the comeback trail after two long breaks. For only the second time in two years, she drops back to 10 furlongs, which brought her a Group-2 success in May.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.35 Deauville (SP)
BET 10pts win (nap) MARMELO
2.30 Pontefract (win 20)
BET 7.75pts win LYNWOOD GOLD
2.45 Deauville (SP)
BET 5pts win LAND FORCE
BET 1pt win and place KINKS
3.20 Deauville (SP)
BET 6pts win URBAN FOX
3.35 Pontefract (win 20)
BET 4.25pts win DANCE DIVA
4.05 Ponteftract (win 20)
BET 2.75pts win CROWNTHORPE
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