OUT WITH THE OLD: IN WITH THE NEW: Stay with us into the New Year. Daqman analysis race by race, with an 8-3 tipping lead over Pricewise of the Racing Post. TODAY: Tizzard The Wizard and what it means to the Jumps scene.
TOMORROW AND SUNDAY BIG RACES: New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day racing. Saturday: Newbury and Punchestown. Sunday: Cheltenham and Fairyhouse.
MONDAY AND TUESDAY: 2016 REVIEW: The short shots and the long shots. How Daqman dominated the 2016 big-race scene with both bankers and huge BETDAQ outsiders.
WEDNESDAY: THE PLAN FOR 2017: Let’s do the same again. Bankers galore and big winners up to 50-1 and more. That’s the plan for 2017, featuring how to prepare for Cheltenham and beyond.
THE MODERN RACING RIVER RUNS DEEP
An excess of racing riches. Paul Nicholls had Denman and Kauto Star passing the Gold Cup back and forth across the stable yard but not since Michael Dickinson has a Jumps trainer been in Colin Tizzard’s position.
Michael had the first five home in the 1983 Gold Cup, among them a magnificent trio: Bregawn, Silver Buck (both Gold Cup heros) and triple King George winner, Wayward Lad.
Team Tizzard – Colin, Joe and the dedicated Dorset stable – has no plans to ‘do a Dickinson’ with their own Big Three.
First thought from them is that Native River, Cue Card and Thistlecrack will have different targets, with Thistlecrack going for gold.
Strictly, on the ratings, Native River is still around a stone behind his stable’s King George one-two but, at the turn of the year, is the season’s leader on prizemoney after his magnificent Hennessy and Welsh Grand National double, with the lion’s share of half a million earned.
The Dickinson days came after the rise and rise of Jumps racing, thanks to the TV coverage in the Sixties and Seventies that put the Gold Cup and Liverpool Grand National on a par with – if not in front of – such as the Derby and King George on the Flat.
Today, as Native River proves, you can beat Cup earnings with a brace of handicap wins, at least until Cheltenham you can. And, with his trio cherry-picking the prizes, it’s still all to play for as to which Tizzard wizard will top the earnings table of 2016-17.
We will see it all on TV, and it’s worth repeating that the rise of Jumps racing that I spoke of has been due in large part to exposure for sponsors.
The weekend is another turning point for terrestrial telly, with racing’s switch from Channel-4. Because of the internet, audiences are thinly spread, newspapers in decline, so it is essential that the new ITV product informs, and informs in a concise way; no more continuous wordy waffle.
Crude displays of seeming knowledge, no. Badinage maybe, but the sport has its own personalties so we need to go racing not ego racing!
Which brings me back to an unassuming Dorset farmer who put his future on the line by building a new stable, putting his faith in his horses and his family business.
I wish early New Year greetings – this column will be busy with the races tomorrow and Sunday – to all who try to achieve a better life by ignoring the profusion and confusion of hyperbabble and concentrating on good work and goodwill in their own way. It’s a winning formula.
Not only horses need earplugs and blinkers these days in face of those who should have tongue-ties.
36.0 BETDAQ OFFERS for 50% STRIKERS
1.00 Taunton More young trainers and jockeys are making the headlines, Flat and Jumps, this year. And such a race as this one for conditional riders is vital, albeit tricky for betting purposes. You have to ‘have a go’ at a price.
Top boys here (five seasons) are: Tom Bellamy 73, Harry Cobden 68, David Noonan 66, Graham Watters 60, Kieron Edgar 57, Killian Moore 55, Jack Sherwood 41, Ciaran Gethings 33 and Michael Heard 29.
Warren Greatrex saddles his 100th hurdles runner of the season with Reilly’s Minor (Cobden up). Emma Lavelle, who scored with Parish Business yesterday, brings back Wincanton winner Demographic (Watters) after a fall at Huntingdon seemed to cost him back-to-back success.
Though Bezau De Brizais won a conditions and amateurs hurdle here at Taunton 10 days ago, the handicapper hiked the four-year-old in the weights, so that Ciaran Gethings claim is very useful.
However, Harry Teal’s 7lb allowance closes the gap for the runner-up that day, Mighty Missile who, in any case, is 5lb ahead of the handicapper here. Can he last out the trip this time?
Nigel Hawke knows that four-year-olds win this. He is responsible for two of that age, including Tom Bellamy’s mount, Camron De Chaillac.
Trainer David Pipe, who reached 1,000 winners this year, sends out Citrus (Noonan) in first-time tongue-tie but also has first-time blinkers on Carqalin (Heard).
Pipe and Heard are 50% when teaming up at Taunton, and Carqalin is also four, so I’ll have a tentative pound win and place at a masssive BETDAQ 36.0
THE UNIT’S FORM HAS BEEN BOOSTED
1.30 Taunton Sam Twiston-Davies, who rides two at the meeting for Paul Nicholls, arrives early to partner Boher Lad, a 40-lengths winner from the front at Ludlow. He also acts on a sound surface and has trade possibilities.
Yur Next, who is 331 at Taunton, is 4lb well in here, as he’s due to go up more than his 7lb penalty for an easy win on the course 10 days back from Distant Sound.
Song Of The Night has Richard Johnson back in the saddle after a head defeat over CD three weeks ago. Only five and should improve again.
2.00 Taunton Dashing Oscar beat nothing well at Sandown but is down in grade today. Royal Supremo should do better on his second run back but needs to, and Kim Bailey is out of form generally, and has a poor strike rate at Taunton.
Phobiaphiliac returns to the sound surface that brought him back-to-back wins nearly six months apart. Now has a hood fitted which suggests his being pulled up at Newbury on the last day has them worried.
My one here is The Unit: 4.9 on BETDAQ as I write. Out of the first four only once in a light career, his runner-up at Doncaster has since won nine lengths at Newcastle.
3.00 Taunton This is a decent little Listed, which Willie Mullins came over and snatched last year. It stays at home this time around, courtesy of the usual suspects: Nicholls, Henderson, King.
Theatre Territory (Nicky Henderson) is said to have ‘grown up’ in the close season; she showed how she’d strenngthened up by winning well at Uttoxeter.
Another who is on the upgrade, Coillte Lass (Paul Nicholls) is reckoned in need of soft ground to show her worth but won a Point and her maiden hurdle on good.
Dusky Legend (Alan King), a daughter of Midnight Legend, hasn’t been out of the first two in eight races over the last two years.
Like father like daughter? Midnight Legend stepped up from class-4 level to win Graded novice hurdles at the Aintree and Punchestown festivals at the age of six.
A DION FORTUNE FROM THE FRONT?
1.20 Newcastle This sprint handicap has a 15lb range but, at this time of year, a trainer in form is essential on the Flat.
That reduces the short-list to Poyle Vinnie, Outrage (Daniel Kubler 2-2) and Kevin Ryan (2-3), with Ryan’s improver, Captain Dion, himself 2-3, a front-runner so a potential trade horse here, likely to be shorter in running than his 9.0 BETDAQ offers this morning.
DAQMAN BETS (staked 1 to 9 for strength)
BET 1pt win and place CARQALIN (1.00 Taunton)
BET 2pts win and place CAPTAIN DION (1.20 Newcastle)
BET 5pts win SONG OF THE NIGHT (1.30 Taunton)
BET 6pts win THE UNIT (2.00 Taunton)
BANKER: BET 10pts win (nap) DUSKY LEGEND (3.00 Taunton)
Did you know that as well as checking the realtime prices on BETDAQ below – you can also log into your account and place your bets directly into BETDAQ from BETDAQ TIPS.
