THE WINNING WAY ON DERBY DAY IS BETDAQ VALUE: This Derby is for you! BETDAQ is the value place to bet, with a near-level playing-field 103% overround this morning. And BETDAQ Tips is where you get the best bets. That’s the winning way on Derby day. Just look at Daqman’s sensational returns, plus his Derby diagnostics:
FAKE NEWS: DERBY REALITY CHECK
HOW THE HANDICAPPER SEES THEM
DAQMAN 20-1 ANTE-POST WINS 100
GO STRAIGHT FOR THE YOUNG LIONS
GEORGE LAID OUT FOR 13.0 COUP
ANNA TO BOOST THE GUINEAS FORM
HOW TO GET MONEY OUT OF DEBT
BOOSH WHOOSH TO WIN THE DASH
NAP AND FAVOURITE IN A DOUBLE
5-1 NAP! ANOTHER DAQMAN DREAM RUN (96 POINTS) Daqman by numbers on Oaks Day: FIVE returns; 5-1 nap; some 64 points profit; the entire Oaks 1-2-3 from four in his Order In! It took his profit in two days to 96 points:
Friday (+64 to recommended stakes)
WON 9-1 SHARED EQUITY
WON 5-1 MEDBURN DREAM (nap)
WON 9-2 PAST MASTER
WON (3rd 10-1) Why We Dream (win and place)
WON (3rd 8-1) Bye Bye Baby (Oaks 1-2-3 from 1-2-3-4)
Thursday (+32 to recommended stakes)
WON 4-1 AWESOMETANK
WON 7-2 PATCHOULI
UPS AND DOWNS! NOW HE’S 119 CLEAR OF PRICEWISE: Medburn Dream (WON 5-1) sent Daqman 119 points ahead of Pricewise of the Racing Post to one-point level stakes (+39 Daqman, -80 Pricewise), with their winners tally Daqman 30, Pricewise 8.
FAKE NEWS: DERBY REALITY CHECK
Draw: LOW IS ESSENTIAL because of the left-hand bends. Not true. There’s been only one winning stall below 7 since 2009. In that time, the winners by draw have been: 5, 7, 8 (twice), 9, 10, 12 and 14
Experience: YOU MUST HAVE IT. Not true. Derby winners are mainly matured from very few races and careful home preparation. The last nine winners had between two and five career starts only, before taking the Classic.
Favourites: THEY ALWAYS WIN. Not even half true. Only three (just one at odds on) have scored in the decade but don’t look much further down the market. If we look beyond last year’s 40-1 shock, six winners were 7-1, 13-2, 6-1, 5-1, 4-1, 11-4.
Trials: THE GUINEAS IS THE BEST TRIAL. Not these days. Only Sea The Stars (2009) and Camelot (2012) have done the double.
But the Dante has provided four winners in the century: North Light, Motivator, Authorized and Golden Horn. Roaring Lion won this year.
And the Derrinstown had a sensational run as kingmaker between 2000 and 2006. Sinndar, Galileo and High Chaparral plus Dylan Thomas (Irish Derby) and Yeats (Gold Cup) won it in the space of seven seasons. Hazapour won this year.
Value: YOU’VE GOT TO SEARCH FOR A DECENT PRICE. Not true. It’s right there at the click of your mouse. Because BETDAQ offers added up to only 103% overround this morning, you are getting value whatever you choose from the punter-friendly orange, in almost a level playing field. Compare with the bookies’ Total SP take in the last three Derbys: 125, 122 and 126% overround.
Soft going: Not according to clerk of the course Andrew Cooper this morning: ‘It continues to dry out and the Derby course is basically good ground, good to soft in places.’
HOW THE HANDICAPPER SEES THEM
* OFFICIAL RATINGS plus the 8.30 a.m. markets with bookies and BETDAQ.
120 Saxon Warrior (10-11 with bookies and 1.91 BETDAQ)
118 Roaring Lion (8-1 bookies and 11.0 BETDAQ)
117 Masar (14-1 bookies and 19.5 BETDAQ)
112 Hazapour (10-1 bookies, 13.0 BETDAQ)
112 Young Rascal (8-1 bookies and 10.0 BETDAQ)
111 Knight To Behold (20-1 bookies, 25.0 BETDAQ)
110 Dee Ex Bee (22-1 bookies, 28.0 BETDAQ)
110 Delano Roosevelt (14-1 bookies, 18.0 BETDAQ)
110 Kew Gardens (33-1 bookies, 32.0 BETDAQ)
110 The Pentagon (25-1 bookies, 32.0 BETDAQ)
107 Sevenna Star (33-1 bookies, 42.0 BETDAQ)
105 Zabriskie (66-1 bookies, 92.0 BETDAQ)
ABC GUIDE of Stats (see Thursday’s column; draw now added):
ABCDEFX The Pentagon Beaten only about a length in Hazapour’s Derby Trial.
ABCDFX Young Rascal By French Derby winner, third in the Arc. Smooth in Chester Vase.
ABCEFX Roaring Lion Surged clear in the Dante. Could build again on that.
FORTUNE COOKIES:
4.30 Roaring Lion, Saxon Warrior
ANTE-POST:
4.30 Roaring Lion (win 100) at 20-1
GO STRAIGHT FOR THE YOUNG LIONS
4.30 Epsom (The Derby) Have a straight win bet on the Derby. Had Roaring Lion kept straight in the Racing Post Trophy as a wayward two-year-old, he would have beaten Saxon Warrior.
Had Young Rascal not been denied a clear run, and twice had to switch in the Chester Vase, he would have been long gone. Measure his run in a straight line and he would have been many lengths clear.
Young Rascal will have learned masses from that experience; Roaring Lion even more so. In fact, Roaring Lion, not fit enough to give arch-rival Saxon Warrior a race of it in the 2,000 Guineas, came good big time when he went clear in the Dante Stakes.
The only other to show improvement this year is Hazapour in the Derrinstown but Delano Roosevelt was running at him, and The Pentagon in third was closer than when well behind Delano Roosevelt in the Ballysax. Hazapour has a difficult draw in stall 3, and his sire has a poor stamina index.
Only two colts have done the Guineas-Derby double this century, but the Dante has provided four Derby winners, and it is significant that Roaring Lion was brought on patiently, and educated, with the York trial in mind.
Delano Roosevelt is a big, galloping sort, badly drawn, and so may again be chasing the scamper up the hill.
In fact, as we saw in the ABC Guide on Thursday, there is a pack of ‘nearly horses’ with collateral form, which all points up the top four in the betting.
That always suggests that those improvers with a turn of foot will go right away from them. But which of the quartet will win?
VERDICT: I think Roaring Lion has every right to come out on top over the extra distance, based on his surge forward in the Dante.
Saxon Warrior has shown such class that he, in turn, has every right to be placed, but has a bogey draw in the one stall. He is built like a miler and has won a Classic at that trip.
Only three horses have been successful from his starting stall since the gates were introduced in 1967.
The stats are even worse for Knight To Behold. Not a single Derby winner in those 51 years has come from stall two.
Unless Roaring Lion’s kink returns and he fights the camber under pressure, I think he must win, with Young Rascal the improver of the race and The Pentagon the dour staying ‘one that won’t go away’ and is likely to hang on into the first four.
ORDER IN: 1 Roaring Lion, 2 Young Rascal, 3 Saxon Warrior, 4 The Pentagon.
GEORGE LAID OUT FOR 13.0 COUP
2.00 Epsom Continued commiserations may not be necessary. Sylvester Kirk can get some compensation for the head defeat of Salouen in yesterdays’ Coronation Cup to a desperate late lunge by Frankie Dettori on Cracksman.
The trainer has brought George to fitness and a nice handicap mark over shorter distances; the theory is that he will improve over this 1m 2f (he’ll love the cut in the ground).
Kirk has won the contest three times in the last nine seasons at 10-1, 16-1 and 25-1, with three different jockeys. Will Hollie Doyle be (George) the fourth? 13.0 on BETDAQ.
Poet’s Prince is on six races consecutively in first or second, and that’s cost him a 20lb rise, while Court House was punished for losing! He’s up 12lb for finishing second in a Listed race.
Poet’s Prince and Westbrook Bertie (19.5 offers) should get their usual flying start, while Indomeneo (9.6) is likely to be on the premises, checked in his run twice when winning on the last day.
ANNA TO BOOST THE GUINEAS FORM
2.35 Epsom (Princess Elizabeth Stakes) Here, we hope, is more consolation at a decent price: 5.8 on BETDAQ this morning.
We now know that Anna Nerium had a not-far-behind (!) rear view of a subsequent Saint-Alary winner (Laurens) and Oaks runner-up (Wild Illusion) when seventh in the 1,000 Guineas.
Three-year-olds are currently two out of three in this and a five-year-old as favourite over the four-year-olds in a stakes race like this suggests that the opening is there.
Particularly when that favourite is the mare Lincoln Rocks, a bridesmaid too often for my liking, giving Anna 9lb and trying for a third time to break into Group level.
HOW TO GET MONEY OUT OF DEBT
3.10 Epsom (Diomed Stakes) Strangely, older horses are 8-10 over four-year-olds but the forecast favourite, Arod, aged seven, is out because of the cut in the ground.
Breton Rock, Crazy Horse and Love Dreams have never won beyond 7f, and it’s hard to fancy Gabrial – hasn’t won for two years – even with Frankie Dettori in the plate.
That leaves last year’s winner, Soveregn Debt (rated 110), the oldie most likely to, with Century Dream (107) and True Valour (108) trying to get the youngsters back on track.
The soft-heavy ground that Century Dream loves deems to have dried out and 8.0 BETDAQ offer Sovereign Debt could be the bet on the stats and on the ratings.
BOOSH WHOOSH TO WIN THE DASH
3.45 Epsom (Dash) There must have been a wry twinkle in the planners’ eyes to make your last bet before the Derby a pinstickers’ sprint, the aptly-named Dash.
Only one favourite has won it, and we’ve had winners at 11-1 (twice), 16-1, 25-1, 33-1 and even 50-1 in the decade. Most are from extremes of the draw.
Stall one has won twice and stalls 14 to 19 five times. Caspian Prince has scored three times in four years from both high and low groups, trying again from stall 2 today, only 1lb higher than last year.
A BETDAQ 13.0 offer, Tarboosh was backed to win the sprint at the April meeting at Epsom, in which nine of these ran but he had no room to challenge. He’s on the low side here with Caspian Prince, so no excuses this time.
On the high side, I reckon Super Julius will go for broke. That should set up a finish for Oisin Murphy on Blue De Vega (15.0), who had Caspian Prince behind at Newbury in the Spring.
NAP AND FAVOURITE IN A DOUBLE
DAQMAN’S BETS
2.00 Epsom (win 20)
BET 2.25pts win INDOMENEO
BET 1.6pts win and place GEORGE
2.35 Epsom (win 30)
BET 6.25pts win (nap) ANNA NERIUM
3.10 Epsom (win 20)
BET 2.75pts win SOVEREIGN DEBT
3.45 Epsom (win 30)
BET 2.5pts win and place TARBOOSH
BET 2pts win and place BLUE DE VEGA
4.30 Epsom (The Derby)
ANTE-POST (win 100): 5pts ROARING LION 20-1
BET (win 50): 4.5pts win YOUNG RASCAL
DAQ MULTIPLES (Epsom saver double): BET 3pts win double ANNA NERIUM (2.35) and SAXON WARRIOR (4.30)
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