THEY’RE OFF FOR A NEW SEASON! The Flat-turf season opens in Ireland today with a cracking Spring card at the Curragh, featuring the Irish Lincolnshire and the Group-3 Park Express for fillies and mares. Daqman finds value bets at 10.0 (twice), 11.5 and 14.5 but the BETDAQ market must be watched.
ABC GUIDES AND BETTING PLANS: Look out later in the week for Daqman’s betting plan for the season and his ABC guide to the Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster.
LAUGHING AT THE HANDICAPPER
THE SMELL OF THE TURF. There’s even the scent of Classic winners about the launching of the Flat season at the Curragh this afternoon. Check out the 3.10.
⭕ 1.35 Curragh The last two winners of this two-year-olds maiden both progressed to score at Group level. Both were drawn six and last year’s was trained Adrian Murray, who has Arizona Blaze out of 6 today!
⭕ 2.05 Curragh What do you do if you train a decent animal but he’s past his sell–by date: answer, you get him ready early before he has to face fit young horses.
That’s what Ado McGuinness has done with Laugh A Minute and won this opening handicap sprint for two years running. Can he land the hat-trick, aged nine?
Ado tells us his opinion in the name of his other runner today, ‘Never Shout Never’, as Laugh A Minute was backed from 10-1 opening show down to 4-1.
The 28-times-placed Laugh A Minute has been prepped on the AW at Dundalk, with a result identical to the same warm-up over the last two year’s, when he’s finished out the back, sixth or seventh.
He runs off his 2022 winning mark of 95 but is claimed off today, while Ado books a senior jockey, Ronan Whelan, for Never Shout Never. He had last year’s winning ride on Laugh A Minute.
Never Shout Never is having his first run for Team McGuinness since being gelded and moved from another early-bird trainer, ‘Fozzy’ Stack, who himself has a player in this, Two Stars, the likely front-runner out of gate 8.
Best drawn is probably Stag Night, 6f Curragh winner first time out in 2022 and third back there in his last run of 2023 to Mickey The Steel.
They were handicapped close together and had Two Stars 4th and Laugh A Minute 5th.
Daqman’s Verdict: I can see Two Stars and Stag Night in a final-furlong battle with the McGuinness pair.
BETDAQ best value: 4.2 Stag Night, 5.9 Laugh A Minute, 11.5 Never Shout Never
EVERLASTING FROM THE FRONT
⭕ 3.10 Curragh This 7f maiden for three-year-old-plus fillies and mares has launched Classic careers.
The 2021 winner, Joan Of Arc (Aidan O’Brien), went on to win the 1,000 Guineas Trial at Leopardstown before second in the Irish 1,000 itself and then winner of the French Oaks.
In 2022, Perfect Thunder (Joseph O’Brien) beat Toy (Aidan O’Brien) half a length, with Toy the one to go on from the race: runner-up in the Irish Oaks and a Listed winner at Naas later on.
Last year Honey Girl, also trained by Joseph, won a Group 3 next time out. But all eyes will be on his father Aidan’s Mayfair in the annual guessing game: will the wizard of Cashel be ready early? 2.5 on BETDAQ says he will.
⭕ 3.40 Curragh (Park Express Stakes) Fillies of three and four have beaten the older mares of five and six 7-3 in the decade.
Aidan O’Brien won with Mother Earth in 2022, splitting two winners by Willie McCreery. But, longer term, Jim Bolger has scored four times since 2004, his last winner in 2019.
O’Brien saddles Brilliant and Everlasting for this first Group race of the season. Brilliant drifted this morning and front-runner Everlasting has class and a value price at Betdaq Betting Exchange offers of 10.0.
YOU’VE GOTTA HAVE HEART: 10.0
⭕ 4.10 Curragh (Irish Lincolnshire) Watch the earlier races and see if there is any clue to the draw. It used to be that single figures came down the middle to win; then recently, high numbers have surged home on the far rail.
And if you are still swayed to ratings of 97, 98 and 99 (four out of five until last year), forget it: there aren’t any!
Raadobarg and Snapraeterea, both on 105 (and in adjacent high stalls), and Serious Challenge (102) have created a gap of 10lb to Chazzesmee, Take Heart and Smooth Tom on 92 and 90; the rest in the 80s
Take Heart gets further but usually runs with the pace. Stablemate Rahmi is lightly raced but has done best on a soundish surface.
Injury-prone and, therefore, lightly raced, Chazzesmee has won after a break; if he needs this, he could take up Saturday’s engagement in the Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster.
Raadobarg won the Irish Lincolnshire (when trained Johnny Murtagh) in 2022 off 98 and is out of gate 15 but 7lb higher.
Four-year-olds are on a roll in the race, with a hat-trick by top yards, and Jessica Harrington’s Lan Cinnte, winner of a Galway festival handicap, comes to hand early.
Green Sky is also four, unexposed and warmed up over hurdles; out of the handicap but has a good claimer on board who takes her weight down a pound below her mark.
Daqman’s Verdict: BETDAQ value 10 Take Heart, 14.5 Lan Cinnte
DAQMAN’S BETS
2.05 Curragh (win 10)
BET 3pts win STAG NIGHT
BET 1pt win and place NEVER SHOUT NEVER
BET 1pt (saver) LAUGH A MINUTE
3.10 Curragh (win 15 nap)
BET 10pts win MAYFAIR
3.40 Curragh (win 15)
BET 1.5pts win and place EVERLASTING
4.10 Curragh (win-50 bull’s-eye bets)
BET 5pts win and place TAKE HEART
BET 3.75 win and 1.25 place LINN CINNTE
What are points? Points facilitate a staking plan, which is the secret to creating profit. One point is whatever you choose: a pound, a euro, or whatever ….
Start with a bank and decide how much you can afford to lose over a period of time, and determine the size of your bets accordingly. Daqman makes this variation every day.
Did you know? DAQMAN’s tips are posted each and every day so he’s always on hand to help with your horse racing betting.
