DAQMAN DOUBLE-WHAMMY FLIES IN: Daqman smashed into the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown yesterday, with a banker on Hurricane Fly (WON 11-10), and a lay on Jezki (3rd 5-4), a whacking double whammy which has him as unbeatable on the big occasion as Hurricane Fly himself.
HE MAKES HIS OWN HEADLINES: Daqman likes to make headline news, and he had two out of two in that respect yesterday, when he announced:
JEZKI TO GET ANOTHER SUNDAY ROASTING
GLADIATOR FIRST INTO HURDLES ARENA
THAT’S 11 LAYS AND 6 BANKERS UP: So it is that he starts a new week another winner in front of Pricewise, with 11 straight lays up and six bankers in succession, so that his premier bets look like this:
Bull’s-Eye Bets 2015 (staked to win 50 points): profit 56.00
Lays results: 11111111111
Lays profit: 110 points to 10pt level stakes
Bankers results: 111111
Bankers profit: 99.81 to 20pt level stakes
2015 Challenge: Daqman 14, Pricewise 8
Overall (since 23 November, 2013): Daqman 122, Pricewise 67
HURRICANE DEFIES THE WIND OF CHANGE
Who’s a fly punter, then? If anyone tells you not to bet on the horses – that it’s a mug’s game; for gamblers – ask them to explain the extraordinary results on Saturday alongside the fantastic feat of Hurricane Fly on Sunday.
While human frailty cost backers of Man City, Chelsea and Southampton a fortune – first three in the Premier League, all ‘unplaced’ in the FA Cup – the character and courage of the horse and the quality of racing form came through at Leopardstown, not from the minnow but from the monster. Yet 11-10 against.
Hurricane Fly deserves to be rated alongside – if not in front of – the very best of hurdlers in the history of his sport: Sir Ken, Hatton’s Grace, Istabraq, Monksfield, Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon and Persian War.
It’s hard to compare because both winners and opposition are different horses in different eras. But he’s now done more than any of them, which is what we mean by record-breaker.
Certainly at Leopardstown, Hurricane Fly is the non pareil – 10 out of 10 and winning his fifth Champion Hurdle there yesterday – a different horse to anything else in more than one generation.
It’s three years now since the pundits started asking how long Hurricane Fly could deny the winds of change, and survive against the younger horses.
But the way he took hold of the race again yesterday, was a warning to Faugheen and Co who currently head him the Cheltenham championship market. This Fly still has its sting. And some.
A BIG PRICE MAY NOT MEAN BIG VALUE
Let’s get this right. Value is when a horse is offered at a bigger price than it should be in the market. What it is not is backing a big price for the sake of it, certainly not in a stakes race.
In a theoretical level-playing field (when all the runners are exposed to the handicapper and he weights them accordingly), you could say that, again in theory at least, an 8-1 shot will win once in nine races, all things being equal in the market.
Generally speaking, the bookmaker will have inserted his ‘edge’, a take-out spread through the list of odds for that race, so your 8-1 probably should be 9-1 in the first place.
For it to become value, the odds need to be bigger than that, or the odds about some, or all of, the shorter-priced horses should be false, particularly those of the favourite (it’s the punter’s job to find out the ‘true odds’).
In a stakes race, the bookies’ fixed-odds seem more generous, with his ‘book’ adding up to around 110%, alongside overrounds on big handicaps at up to 137% (this jumps season already).
But, in fact, a stakes race is by no means a level-playing field, and the front of the market wins far more often, so that the 7-1 or 8-1 offered about Arctic Fire yesterday – a stone behind the main protagonists on the ratings – was bad value, window-dressing for fixed-odds prices.
Such a third favourite in such a race was unlikely to win very often. It’s for you when you price up a race to know what ‘very often’ is, and how Arctic Fire’s chance relates to the odds on offer.
It seemed to rest with the front two. Now if there are flaws in the make-up of one of the duellists in a two-horse race, or circumstances are against him on the day, you may get odds far too big about the other one.
Yesterday, Jezki’s stable was badly out of form; his target was Cheltenham, not Leopardstown, where Hurricane Fly has always bossed him. The reasons piled up to make 11-10 Hurricane Fly tremendous value. He should have been 4-6 at best, and he won like it.
IT’S THE RIGHT TRACK FOR MUSICAL GUY
LUDLOW Back to the kitchen sink today. And not much chance of cleaning up on value, though we may be able to expose one or two flaws at Ludlow.
The opener (1.45) seems to be a question of whether the penalised winners, Arabian Revolution and Cape Caster, can give 7lb to the apparent best of those previously placed, Sebastian Beach, but – on breeding – that one looks as though he needs further than this 2m (in handicaps later on?)
Rose Of The World (2.15) is the ‘wrong’ price, offered at 9.0 early mouse in BETDAQ. A winner at Uttoxeter, her form is disguised by her vain attempt at a Listed, and she is bred for today’s step up in trip. Ebony Express, reunited with winning jockey, Tony McCoy, must be a danger.
Your best chance of getting a race run to form is in class 3 or higher but the class 3 at Ludlow today (2.50) is a novices’ chase, and 3m at that.
It’s unlikely the 11-year-olds can win it. What are they doing in a novice chases at that age? In fact, most of this field has come late to this discipline over fences.
Lookslikerainted (‘chewing-gum for the eyes, Dougal?) has won left-handed, but he jumps to the right, and today’s track should suit, though recent PUP form ‘figures’ don’t inspire confidence.
He’s not well in here on Worcester form with the ‘glass’ horse, Hard To Swallow, whose been able to stand only two races a year since 2012.
The Musical Guy has come good on better ground, and the drying day is in his favour. He stays well and his jumping has improved on the right-handed track at Leicester last two starts. His only other success was also right-handed at Towcester, and 7.2 looks more than adequate for a bet.
All Whisky Yankee’s form is left-handed, and he’s had only one chase start, but there’s some leeway in the offer of 9.6 and he should improve, as a winner over hurdles three timrs.
Tony Star has tried this trip only once before and was beaten 42 lengths. Theatre Queen’s form is in amateur-rider hunter-chases.
PLUMPTON Morning-favourite Bobbits Way (2.30) looks worth opposing, as a 10-year-old giving three to five years to the top three, all of them well bred for this game, by Presenting, Westerner and Dom Alco.
Bobbits Way is a 22-race maiden under Rules and was flattered by his second on this course last time, as the winner was giving him around a stone.
The grey Artifice Sivola has been taking his cfences well at home and looks the one to make a chaser, with man-of-the-year 2014, Leighton Aspell, already back in the big time with Many Clouds.
I’m hoping to see Sivola jumping boldly in front over this trip and giving me a trade for my 5.6 on BETDAQ this morning.
DAQMAN’S BETS (Rated 1 to 9 for strength; 10 is a banker)
BET 3pts win on each EBONY EXPRESS and ROSE OF THE WORLD (2.15 Ludlow)
BET 4pt s win ARTIFICE SIVOLA (2.30 Plumpton)
BET 4pts win (nap) THE MUSICAL GUY and 2pts win WHISKY YANKEE (2.50 Ludlow)
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