DAQMAN’S 52 POINTS PROFIT IN ONE DAY: Daqman was in devastating form yesterday with three winners and a third from four races, totting up 52 points profit at Betdaq offers.
10-1 WINNER AND 3-1 NAP: He scored with his very first bet, Crown Counsel (WON 10-1), then landed his nap with Yaa Wayl (WON 3-1) and completed a great day with Space Station (WON 11-4).
JACKPOT BETS TOMORROW: As usual, Daqman’s bets are staked to win 20 points today but, as is usual again, you can expect them to go up to win-35, and bigger in jackpots, as he tilts at the top Betdaq offers on the Saturday cards.
There’s a Gala start to the Eclipse meeting today. All eyes are on Sandown for the battle of Workforce and So You Think, and Class Is Class in the Gala Stakes is an appropriate, and vital, clue to the big weekend.
‘Class’ trainer Sir Michael Stoute, who will saddle Workforce, hasn’t had a winner since Greeks had money in the bank and we were all getting ready for a ‘barbecue’ June.
As well as the worry of the misguided weathermen, punters these days have the curse of course watering, particularly ahead of big races, when tracks are keen to attract the biggest possible field for their major event.
Class Is Class would like a bit of ease in the ground, as would All The Aces, whereas Forte Dei Marmi and Jet Away have won all their races on good to firm. What the overnight watering (‘3-5mm to entire course’) will produce can usually be gauged by the jockeys and the times recorded in the early races.
But that may not be much help today, because the meeting starts with two sprints down a different part of the course – diagonally across the middle of the main track – and because those sprints are draw dependent. To make matters worse, I can’t find a guaranteed front- runner in either of them, so the results may not reveal very much about the pace of the ground.
The Gala also has no known front runner: Tazeez (4.00), the top-rated and the only Group winner in the race, made all at Newbury last autumn but that was a with only four opponents and was over a furlong shorter, so it doesn’t necessarily follow that he’ll do so again and, in fact, hasn’t done since.
His chance is improved today in the absence of three-year-olds (they won five out of six from 2002) but, until last year, we hadn’t expected to see anything over the age of five have a say in this race.
Class Is Class has won only at Listed level but, like Black Spirit, Forte Dei Marmi and Rasmy, he’s been placed in a Group-3. Fallen Idol, Prince Siegfried and Vesuve are Listed winners.
Emirates Champion has to convert his Dubai carnival successes to turf and, though Luca Cumani insists that Forte Dei Marmi is better than the bare form, it’s hard to get away from Tazeez.
Sir Michael Stoute won the 10-furlong handicap last year but the same doubts about stable wellbeing put me off Botanist (4.35) and, after Oceanway drifted like a dog on a raft this morning, offers became becalmed, though further movement either way would be helpful.
That watering worry has us suffering another ‘trainer states’, in which Barrington Hills tells us Gunner Lindley will run if the ground is suitable but doesn’t tell us suitable for what, frying eggs or sailing barges! We assume, from Gunner’s past performance, that Barry is hoping the sprinklers were liberal.
Chain Lightning also seems to want a bit of cut but nothing else was being backed this morning and he returns to the CD of his April win when he had subsequent winners behind. It was no disgrace to be eighth in the Britannia over shorter.
The two-year-old Listed (2.50) is a devilish puzzle, with animals coming from fifth (two of them) seventh and eighth in Royal Ascot juvenile classics.
The Norfolk Stakes fifth won it in 2010, which suggests Forevertheoptimist – seventh in it last month – could go close, but the Windsor Castle 10th scored here the year before, which was a worse performance than Bear Behind, fifth in the same Royal Ascot race, and fillies won four out of five up to 2006, with Kohala’s Queen Mary fifth the best indicator so far, with the fourth one home representing Marble Hill form.
At Warwick, in the juveniles event (2.40), the proximity of a selling plater, in the frame behind Loyal Master, suggests that his form, and therefore Grand Gold’s, who beat him at Newcastle, is not up to much.
Similarly, Richard Hannon’s Salisbury winner, Netley Marsh, is diminished by the fourth home having been beaten a head in a seller since.
Red Hearts ran well against a horse which turned over a Hannon hot-pot at Newbury and the daughter of Red Clubs has tried Listed class already. She shouldn’t be 16.0 in a race that is not all that it seems.
Talking of sellers, Hogmaneigh (6.30 Beverley) drops from class-3 to a plate tonight. He doesn’t so much drop as plummet, and Paul Hanagan rides the old boy.
Another interesting jockey booking is Philip Robinson for Munaawer (8.00), poised to get CD revenge at the weights on Judicious and with trainer James Bethell currently getting 100% from his runners, according to the Racing Post’s admirable RTF form list..
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 1.3pts win and place RED HEARTS (2.40 Warwick)
BET 7.1pts win TAZEEZ (4.00 Sandown)
BET 8.6pts win (nap) CHAIN LIGHTNING (4.35 Sandown)
BET 9pts win HOGMANEIGH (6.30 Beverley)
BET 6.6pts win MUNAAWER (8.00 Beverley)
