DAQMAN HITS WINNERS TON UP OVER PRICEWISE FOR 2018: Daqman yesterday hit 100 winners in 2018 against Pricewise of the Racing Post in Pricewise-selected big races. His winners yesterday included Warrior’s Tale (WON 15-2), making three in all for the day and seven over the last three days.
Saturday
WON 15-2 WARRIOR’S TALE (Grand Sefton)
WON 8-13 ALTIOR (Tingle Creek)
WON 1-2 DEFINITLY RED (Many Clouds Chase)
Friday
WON 12-1 ALSA MIX (from 17.5 on BETDAQ)
Thursday
WON 9-4 SMOKING GUN
WON 7-4 CAMILE
WON 13-8 DANSE IDOL (nap)
SUPERNAPS DOUBLE WITH FOUR MORE BIG RACES TO PLAY: Current scores are now Daqman 6, Pricewise 4 (Daqman -1.26 to +8.33 for Pricewise to single-unit stakes). They clash today only in the 2.25 Huntingdon, though Daqman finds four big races to play at different meetings in England and Ireland, and nominates two supernaps.
SHADOW LOOMS LARGE AT BETDAQ 18.5
PLAYING FIELD HAS GREAT ADVANTAGE
LOVE’S BIG CHANCE TO CONQUER ALL..
CHARBEL FORM LOOKS SOUND AS A BELL
SHADOW LOOMS LARGE AT BETDAQ 18.5
1.05 Kelso (Scottish Borders National) Berwick trainer Sandy Thomson, who won this back to back (2014-15), now hopes for the same again.
The yard’s last winner, now 13 years old, Harry The Viking (2016), would give the Thomson team four in a row.
Harry did everything right again last year, in fact better, when winning the race in which he’d been second the year before as the same prep to attempting this. But the National was lost to the weather.
This year, trying to follow the pattern for the third successive season, he was beaten a very long way in the same prep race but it was run on a sound surface and today’s easier ground will suit. So will a half-stone drop in the weights.
Zerachiel won the Tim Molony Chase at Haydock in March but hasn’t been seen since, so we don’t know whether the 11lb rise is punishment enough.
Total Assets’ first attempt at 4m was a winning one last month but that’s cost the mare a 10lb ratings hike.
Victor Dartnall is up from Devon with Dancing Shadow, a winner over further who is back after a run and a wind op or two, and might be worth your pound at 18.5 on BETDAQ this morning
PLAYING FIELD HAS GREAT ADVANTAGE
1.45 Cork (Hilly Way Chase) Willie Mullins has won 10 of the last 11 Hilly Ways, the last twice with ‘monsters’, Douvan and Un De Sceaux, who was gallant in defeat by Altior yesterday.
Going way back, I can’t find a winner of this of a double-figure age, yet two old-timers are the market rivals to Mullin’s rising star Great Field today.
Rising because successful stepping up from novice to Grade-1 novice and, on the last day, Grade-2 winner against his elders, giving 4lb to runner-up Doctor Phoenix that day; he now gives him 3lb.
LOVE’S BIG CHANCE TO CONQUER ALL..
2.00 Punchestown (John Durkan Memorial) The JLT winner, Shattered Love (Gordon Elliott), tries to establish herself in my horses-to-follow list as a Fortune Cookie for the big occasion in the Spring.
At the same Cheltenham meeting, Min (Willie Mullins) ran second to Altior, and Balko Des Flos (Henry De Bromhead) beat Un De Sceaux.
Balko Des Flos was then behind Min at Aintree and Min was behind Un De Sceaux at the Spring festival here at Punchestown.
The handicapper has also been watching this merry-go-round of top-class chasers, and he comes up with Balko Des Flos 168, Min 168, so it all hangs on the run of the race and whether Shattered Love (153) can bridge the gap through the mare’s 7lb allowance.
You can’t want for more mental and physical strength and guts t han from one by Yeats out of a Bustino mare. So we’ll give Love a chance.
CHARBEL FORM LOOKS SOUND AS A BELL
2.25 Huntingdon (Edredon Bleu Chase) Lalor let the early form down yesterday but he didn’t like the boggy ground, and I will be leaving him in tomorrow’s revision of my horses-to-follow list.
If he’d had today’s surface at Huntingdon, and the forecast sunshine, things might have been different.
And I’m asking another from my list, Charbel, to ‘prove’ the Politologue form of a Grade 2 at Ascot last month when they were separated only half a length.
Charbel had earlier beaten Baron Alco at Chepstow before that one won the Autumn Gold Cup at Cheltenham, so the form is rock solid.
The ground will suit God’s Own but he gives 6lb to Charbel under the race conditions though they are both rated the same (159).
San Benedeto has gone downhill (by 5lb) since dividing Altior and God’s Own at Sandown in April and it was a year before that when Tea For Two was last placed in a race, albeit he’s been kept mainly to top-line racing at Cheltenham and Aintree over fences and hurdles.
Josses Hill has also been going backwards, and Art Mauresque’s last success was more than two years ago.
Rene’s Girl has a stone to find. Hammersley Lake will like the ground (but is 10 now); Beggar’s Wishes won’t. That takes us back to Charbel, who had Hammersley Lake 23 or more lengths behind at Ascot.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.45 Cork (Irish supernap)
BET 20pts win GREAT FIELD
2.00 Punchestown (win 20)
BET 6pts win SHATTERED LOVE
2.05 Kelso (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BET 2.85pts win and place DANCING SHADOW
2.25 Huntingdon (English supernap)
BET 20pts win CHARBEL
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