DAQMAN 49, PRICEWISE 16: ‘Iva bet to beat Pricewise’ said Daqman yesterday, and Ivawood (WON 3-1) gave him a good start to the Newmarket July meeting, putting him 49-16 up in the challenge to the Racing Post columnist on the Flat.
16 BANKERS OUT OF 21: But banker Arab Spring flopped. Says Daqman: ‘It was another Eclipse; slippery surface; no pace on; the leaders poaching it; 10 seconds slow, a hurdles race on soft without the jumps.’ Daqman bankers go into today 16-21.
BULL’S EYE UP 228 POINTS: Daqman keeps his stakes down again at Newmarket today but promises that, whatever the weather, he will attack the big races at big prices tomorrow with Bull’s-Eye Bets (228 points up) and a huge Daq Multiples double.
CLAW IN THE CASH AT BETDAQ 18.0
1.40 Newmarket I warned at the start of the week that we could get the soft ground we have today. The in-between days like yesterday (rain on firm ground, so slippery for horse and punter!) are the worst, bringing shock results.
Everyone knows the score today but the prospect of many non-runners is the difficulty over my cornflakes. None of those in this opener have won with ‘soft’ in the going return.
Wedding Ring, Hot Coffee, Bragging, Little Shambles, Provenance, Nakuti and Gown have all been beaten on soft.
The first four in the market, early mouse, were lightly raced (two or three runs), but the stats say that experience is needed in the wide open spaces of the heath: the last four winners had all had six or seven outings before this.
Richard Hannon, going for a hat-trick in the race, has withdrawn Aertex in favour of Our Queenie, with that amount of experience but she is unfancied this morning at big offers. What about the ground?
Nakuti (a Mastercrafstman), Gown (Exclusive Art) and Free Rein (Dansili), whose dam’s sire, Efisio, was a soft-ground specialist, should enjoy it, with Free Rein, related to Group/Grade 1 performers, looking thrown in.
Inexperience is not normally an excuse for a Ralph Beckett runner, and I took 5.8 in the BETDAQ orange this morning.
2.10 Newmarket (Cherry Hinton, now Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes) As far as punters are concerned you can call a race what you like but keep the old names somewhere in the title, because the past results and the flavour conjured up when we’re mentally tasting the race is essential to our betting, unless you’re an algorithm man who’s all about slide-rules not horseflesh.
High Celebrity was backed like the proverbial certainty this morning, a shade of odds on (6.2 bar) in a 101% orange BETDAQ, even before the withdrawal of I Am Beautiful.
The high celebrity among French trainers, Andre Fabre makes few mistakes. Any trainer will tell you that it’s a two-year-old’s second run that matters, not the first, however impressive.
But Fabre started subsequent 1,000 Guineas winner, Miss France, on her Group route here, and reckons High Celebrity is in that league.
As a granddaughter of Barathea, Arabian Queen should be at home on the ground, with David Elsworth doing well this season. She was not disgraced in the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot.
2.40 Newmarket (Falmouth Stakes) Three-year-olds used to have twice as many wins as older horses in this but the position has been reversed since the race became a Group 1 in 2004.
Integral, Sky Lantern and Rizeena are all regarded as top-of-the-ground fillies, but the Irish raiders, Peace Burg and Purr Along, both winners on soft-heavy, have to bridge a ratings gap of up to 11lb on the favourites.
There was no pace on early – contributory to the Eclipse and Arab Spring shocks – when Rizeena won the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Sky Lantern, who beat Integral last season, was a boat, clearly overweight, when she finished behind Integral and Purr Along at Royal Ascot.
Purr Along had trotted up at The Curragh on the soft when reappearing for Johnny Murtagh (switched from Willie Muir) and may have improved. Even on her head defeat by cCrtify as a juvenile, she could probably be 4-5lb better and getting her conditions could make up the rest
I’m best guessing again but, in a value ‘book’ of BETDAQ offers (only 102% as I write), Purr Along looked big at 8.8 if the ground really is soft
3.15 Newmarket We lost a few of these quite early on, but I still found myself checking out a 108% list in the orange, a quickly reformed market, headed by Charles Molson, a soft-ground winner, twice denied a run in big handicaps at York and Newmarket.
Never is not an easy word to live by, but let’s say I very rarely back a horse with just the maiden win to his name, and his form also has you worrying that he makes his own trouble.
It’s too early to know this animal’s true character, and it may well be the case that he’s had a luckless season so far, with the draw and the run of the race against him.
But there are others more lightly raced who ‘could be anything’. Royal Seal and Golden Steps have ‘beaten nothing well’ but could come on the proverbial ton.
It’s a 15lb-long handicap and history tells us that only two winners in the decade have carried more than 8st 12lb. The stats also say that in five of the last six seasons, the winner and second have both come from stalls 10 to 17 (though, of course, the field is depleted today).
Nine acceptors for this were behind Tim Easterby’s See The Sun (up 7lb for that) at York which also gives him a line to The Hooded Claw, a soft and heavy ground winner, drawn 20.
On collateral form through Kickboxer, The Hooded Claw – well bred for this, by Dandy Man – would have gone very close to winning that York race, had the ground been soft.
There’s plenty of pace on in the double-figure draw from High On Life and See The Sun. But therr’s another big offer in the low stalls.
Remember is 11.5, a course-and-distance winner who is by soft-ground sire Selkirk, and already stays further, so potentially able to overcome any draw disadvantage.
Kieran O’Neill keeps the ride, as Richard Hughes seemingly prefers High On Life, though that one is up 22lb since the start of a four-timer and tries to climb two grades in one go today.
I’ll stick with the high draw and the lower weights, and take Golden Steps (8.0) and The Hooded Claw (18.0) against the field.
DAQMAN’S BETS (each to win 20 points, except the banker.)
BET 4pts win FREE REIN (1.40 Newmarket)
BANKER: BET 20pts win (nap) HIGH CELEBRITY (2.10 Newmarket)
BET 2.5pts win PURR ALONG (2.40 Newmarket)
BET 2.8pts win GOLDEN STEPS and 1.2pts win and place THE HOODED CLAW (3.15 Newmarket)
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