DAQMAN PUMPS UP VALUE VOLUME: Daqman could have napped Honeysuckle yesterday but won more money naming the second for a five-point profit on the race, the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle. He warned yesterday against the form of the results on the ground and again today on the consequences for Cheltenham backers. Daqman leads Pricewise 3-2.
WON (2nd 22-1) RONALD PUMP w/p 35.0 on BETDAQ
TODAY: Daqman heads to Kempton for his nap in a class 3 handicap
TOMORROW: Weekend racing wrap continued with Fortune Cookies in mind
HARD GOING FOR PUNTERS
Don’t say you weren’t warned. Punters were set a trap by the good ground at Fairyhouse yesterday and results justified my cry of ‘get me out of here’.
Finding winners on a decent surface in a land of tough winter warriors is a daunting task.
Worse still, you have to be wary of the form for Cheltenham in March, even as the Press raves and the odds contract.
It stands to reason that, when good-ground winners try to repeat the form on a surface with ‘soft’ in the going, or even ‘heavy’, on the arduous championship track, they fail to cope.
It not only stands to reason it also stands as a general rule the other way round (soft to good):
⭕ Drinmore Novices Chase
Winner 2018 on ‘good’ (Delta Work) beaten, third at Cheltenham, on soft
Winner 2015 on soft (No More Heroes) beaten, fourth at Cheltenham on good
Winner 2014 on good (Valseur Lido) beaten, third at Cheltenham on soft.
⭕ Royal Bond Novices Hurdle
Winner 2014 yielding (Nichols Canyon) beaten third at Cheltenham on good
Winner 2011 heavy (Sous Les Cieux) beaten fifth at Cheltenham on good
In other words, ante-post Cheltenham punts placed now on trial winners are guessing that the horses remain the same, or do even better, and that the ground will be the same or similar.
So yesterday at Fairyhouse was not a day to remember unless you were a pinsticker in the Porterstown Handicap and managed to find Smoking Gun. There was no smoking gun.
His strike rate over fences was 1-13 with 10 losing races since he won nearly two years ago. In that time he had been beaten a total of 171 lengths, placing only once, and was a faller (once) and pulled up (twice). His Fairyhouse form was 004.
From the ridiculous to the sublime. Honeysuckle performed yet again; her 13 consecutive victories under rules now shows a hat-trick of Hatton’s Grace hurdles.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. With ‘impossible’ winners on yesterday’s card at 10-1, 12-1 and 25-1, all you got for your money about Honeysuckle was an ‘impossible’ 2-5. Worse still, she’s been odds-on for nine of those 13 wins.
We seem to be in an age of a minority of horses of very high quality which are unbackable or race against each other for big money at weekends, with weekdays devoted to the majority which are unreliable and race against each other for peanuts.
BASHOSH TO BOSS’EM
⭕ 2.25 Kempton A class 3 event is as good as it gets at Kempton which is not bad by usual Monday standards! It also presents the nap on a modest day of racing. The Roger Varian trained Bashosh is taken to get back to winning ways.
The three-year-old won his first two starts at Leicester and Doncaster but subsequently has been a beaten favourite at both Redcar (last of three) and Wolverhampton. It points towards him being high in the handicap so the pound drop is welcome but a bigger positive today could well be the drop back in trip to a mile after seemingly struggling in the closing stages of his latest race over 1m 4f. It’s a significant drop back in trip but he remains much more progressive than some of his rivals here.
Chief BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE rival is United Front who has winning form at this level. He is also dropping back in trip and has been nibbled at in the market but his overall recent form doesn’t fill you with confidence and he’s also capable of throwing in a poor run as he did at York earlier in the year.
STARTER FOR (WIN) 10
⭕ 3.35 Kempton I’m Mable lost her maiden tag at the ninth attempt at Nottingham last time out but only scraped home by a head and her all-weather form this year is a huge concern:
Apr: Chelmsford 7th of 10
May: Wolverhampton 6th of 9
Aug: Wolverhampton 12th of 12
A better percentage play might be Starter For Ten who has been finishing to good effect in his last two races over course and distance. A reproduction of his second to Pinball Wizard in September should be good enough and he is taken to win 10 points on the Daqman staking plan.
FIT FOR A STAR
⭕ 5.30 Wolverhampton One of the more interesting races on the Wolverhampton card and all eyes will be on Fitwood Star here to see if he can make it 4 from 4 handicaps.
Not many do that these days as the handicapper usually errs too much on the side of caution with winning horses but a 4lb rise for his Chelmsford win a year ago doesn’t look overly punitive in his case.
Obviously we have to factor in the absence but he defied a longer 709 day break to win here last year and could easily reward the patience again.
His trainer Roger Teal is in good form winning with three from his last nine runners.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 10 points)
BET 7.1pts win (nap) BASHOSH (2.25 Kempton)
BET 2.8pts win STARTER FOR TEN (3.35 Kempton)
BET 2.6pts win FITWOOD STAR (5.30 Wolverhampton)
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.
