BREEDERS’ CUP BET A ‘PLUM LOCO’ PRICE ON BETDAQ: Daqman roves the value range in England, Welsh Wales and America and finds Betdaq bets at 20.0, 19.0 and 14.5 in the States at offers which he regards as ‘plum loco’ and ‘the value of the day’.
Draw! It’s a bullet start to the Breeders Cup. Don’t miss tonight’s opening speed clash of dirt aces Secret Circle and Holdin Bullets, but in the 7f and mile races keep your eye on the Churchill Downs draw. It’s expensive to oppose.
Ffos Las: It only happens once or twice a year but, when you have 12 or more runners over a mile at Ffos Las, a high draw seems to be paramount.
The worries are sparse records for the new track (showing a ratio of eight in 10 double-figure-field 1m events to high numbers) and the fact that the two qualifying races that open today’s card are not handicaps.
In theory, handicaps are a level playing field, since the horses are theoretically weighted to finish level, so any bias should show.
It certainly did in the last mile handicap at Ffos Las. There were 15 runners and the result by stall was 14, 15, 13.
In non-handicaps, quality may stand out over quantity and overcome a bad draw. But there is an added bias today: the ground is very soft.
Taking odds on, when there is both potential stalls bias and ground dependency, is not a good idea: Trader Jack (12.30) has a run behind him, which few other two-year-olds in the opener have, but he may face formidable opposition from the unraced Tigresa.
Tigresa’s sire, Tiger Hill, breeds mud-lovers, and trainer Mark Johnston, who can get them ready first time, has a 21% strike rate on the track: 6.2 second favourite on Betdaq, as I write; nothing else backed outside the top two.
I’ll give you 10 guesses who is leading jockey at Ffos Las? Don’t bother checking out Hanagan, Fallon, Hughes, De Sousa at al. The answer is Martin Lane.
Now, when you get a man with those credentials riding a horse that is better than the bare form, and that has won on soft ground, you clearly have a bet in today’s conditions.
Sweet World (3.30) has recent form figures of 21110, if you take his improved hurdles form into account but, though he’s shot up a stone over obstacles, he’s only 6lb higher on the Flat than for his recent success at Chepstow.
This time, instead of draw bias, you are faced with trying to decide: will a stalwart like Sweet World (6.0 this morning) overcome improving youngsters because of his propensity for the ground conditions?
In fact, his nearest rival in the betting is a stablemate, Taste The Wine, followed by Market Puzzle, and both should finish behind him on their form together at Ffos Las and Chepstow in August.
Fontwell: I looked for more at around 5-1, and fancied Charlie Mann has a potentially decent chaser – has already won a Point – in Sum Laff (2.50).
At the front of the market are an 11-year-old, Magot De Grugy, there on sufferance just because the stable is in form, and a maiden, O’Malley’s Oscar, while the Jonjo hope, I’m The Decider, has drifted like a dog on raft, out to double figures this morning.
Churchill Downs: The Breeders Cup meeting opens frenetically with a dirt dash which features the supercharged Secret Circle, but there’s a horse in the race which English racegoers know but have ignored in the market this morning.
Holdin Bullets attracted the hype before Royal Ascot, when Wesley Ward brought him over but had to withdraw him. If anything can keep pace with the Circle of fire, this one can, and 19.0 is plum loco, if my Americanism isn’t too out of date.
The draw is a big factor at Churchill Downs, which is where I came in today. John Gosden won’t be happy with the 10 stall for Elusive Kate (8.50), in which Ballydoyle has Up trapping in three. But European fillies have always been eclipsed in the US events.
The ground has come in favour of Pure Gossip, supplemented for the race after a six-lengths capture of the trial that has produced the last two winners of this. Yet she’s 14.5. That must be the day’s best value for your evening crusade across the Pond.
The same bad Euro-fillies’ stats effect Questing for Gosden and Homecoming Queen for O’Brien in the Grade-1 Grey Goose (10.10), though on breeding Questing has an outside chance.
But by all accounts two Group-1 winners over there, Grace Hall and My Miss Aurelia, have been in cruise mode so far and the shape of the race would appear to be: Aurelia goes clear, Grace stays on through the pack. Such will be the pace of the race that I’ll take the late finisher with the stamina at 5.0, and save on Miss Aurelia.
In theory, the ground has gone against Dubawi Heights (10.50) – the Racing Post Spotlight must have been written before yesterday’s rain – and, in any case, she’s held by Stacelita, who seems to have continued in the States where she left off in France: a winner.
Unless they dawdle, Ballydoyle’s Misty For Me will struggle to last the trip, and there’s so little between Nahrain and Announce that you couldn’t back either with confidence.
Shared Account took this last year at 33-1 and has clearly been aimed at the race again, yet is left alone by Betdaq backers at 20.0 as I write. I’ll have a pound on the Account.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 3.8pts win TIGRESA (12.30 Ffos Las)
BET 3.7pts win (nap) SUM LAFF (2.50 Fontwell)
BET 4pts win SWEET WORLD (3.30 Ffos Las)
BET 1.1pts win and place HOLDIN BULLETS and 2pts win (stakes saver) SECRET CIRCLE (8.10 Churchill Downs)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: 2.2pts win and place PURE GOSSIP (8.50 Churchill Downs)
BET 4pts win GRACE HALL and 1.4pts win (stakes saver) MISS AURELIA (10.10 Churchill Downs)
BET 5.7pts win STACELITA and 1pt win and place SHARED ACCOUNT (10.50 Churchill Downs)
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