DAQMAN LANDS BACK-TO-BACK NAPS: Daqman scored with his nap, Russian Realm (WON 5-4), at Goodwood yesterday, following Lawman’s Thunder (WON 13-8) on the BETDAQ card at Kempton on Wednesday night.
CLASSIC WEEKEND FOR BETDAQ PUNTERS: Today is the final Epsom-Derby trial at Goodwood, where the going is soft. Tomorrow and Sunday features the Irish 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas, for which the ground may remain yielding but no softer if the dry forecast is correct.
A WORD TO THE WISE: The value challenge between Daqman (32 winning returns on the Flat) and Pricewise (9) resumes tomorrow at 71-21 overall to Daqman since it began on November 23 last year.
OBSERVATIONAL TO PASS DERBY TEST
3.25 Goodwood This is the Derby course the wrong way round. Up hill, left hard down, rail it on the descent, round the hairpin, then uphill to the finish. Only substitute ‘right’ for ‘left’ on this anti-clockwise roundabout in Sussex.
Tricky stuff, and no wonder winning odds in the five handicaps on this card in the last two years have included 25-1, 18-1, 16-1, 8-1, 13-2, 9-2.
Like Chester and Epsom, you takes your choice between those who get a good draw and hug the rails or those you think might be able to lie up just off the pace and make a winning run on the wide outside.
In this 3.25, I can see Kalipsell and (if she gets away on terms) Rosaceous setting the pace, with Running Deer, Sula Two and Tioga Pass in touch.
Tioga Pass, third at Windsor to the subsequent Lingfield Oaks Trial winner, Honor Bound, looks capable of taking over and leading the charge up the hill.
Tioga Pass (5.1 on BETDAQ as I write) must surely take advantage of her age allowance and the conditions of this race, which gives her a pull of 16lb minimum on the rest of the field.
4.00 Goodwood (Cocked Hat Stakes) The last great Derby winner to come to this as a late, late developer was Troy (1979), trained by Major Dick Hern.
The Hern yard also had a royal runner for Epsom that year (Milford) and it was a delicate balancing act for the galloping major to have two in the trials when one was Her Majesty’s.
But, while one colt showed interest in other things (paddock watchers blushed), the other grew in strength and an eagerness to win that eventually saw him the Derby hero by seven lengths.
I had him at 40-1, watching from a private box at the top of the Epsom stands as his jockey, William Hunter Carson, got trapped on the rails after Tattenham Corner, seventh, seemingly without hope. But, switched to the outside, he flew up the hill, Shergar style and Frankel fashion, all rolled into one ball of bounding muscle.
He had also knocked them into a cocked hat in this race they then called the Predominate Stakes. It was a small field that day, too. Can such a colt emerge here?
With the defection of Postponed, only Observational of this field remains in the Derby but John Gosden, who saddles Marzocco, knows that others – Masked Marvel and Michelangelo are among his three winners – have gone on to Group success.
Marzocco was second in the Derby trial at Epsom (Signposted fourth) but the third horse home subsequently finished a long way behind in the Chester Vase.
The Galileo colt, Observational, was second at Newmarket to Sudden Wonder, who was third in the Lingfield Derby Trial, with Signposted fifth. That puts Observational ahead of Marzocco. In theory.
Barley Mow is from the family of a Derby winner, North Light, and the step up to 10f helped him last time out in a Listed. The third colt home won on Saturday.
Barley Mow was Feilden Stakes fourth to True Story – he let the form down in the Dante – and he has a penalty for that Listed success. The Marcus Tregoning team is only just now coming to hand, and Snow Trouble will be suited by the rain.
If they run to form, Barley Mow and Snow Trouble should rail round in front, with the final climb a worry for one with a penalty and for the other with only handicap form.
The stamina-packed pedigree of Observational looks a bonus as the going turned soft this morning, and should see him through on the hill.
4.35 Goodwood This is a class 2 and you’d normally expect a quality exposed horse to win in his turn here. But there are dark horses, lightly raced, saddled by top sprint trainers, Andrew Balding with Desert Command, lower-grade winner in the mud, and Robert Cowell with Intrinsic, a promising Ascot scorer with cut in the ground.
Ashpan Sam (4.4 on BETDAQ after six withdrawals) has been running well in good company this year and now has the same ground and a similar draw to when he won over this Goodwood CD last autumn.
Gramercy likes some cut in the ground and may be the best outsider at 14.5 but he’s a once-a-year horse who clearly needs everything to drop right.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 5pts win (nap) TIOGA PASS (3.25 Goodwood)
BET 8.8pts win OBSERVATIONAL (4.00 Goodwood)
BET 5.8pts win ASHPAN SAM (4.35 Goodwood)
BET 2.4pts win ADORE (5.10 Goodwood)
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