SIX DAQMAN NAPS OUT OF SEVEN AS LAYERS RUN AND ‘HYDE’: Daqman had the layers on the run yet again yesterday when he napped Mister Hyde (WON 11-8) at Market Rasen. It was his sixth successful best bet in a week (Tuesday’s fell), and number 15 from the last 24 to complete.
Thursday WON 11-8 (Mister Hyde)
Wednesday WON 7-2 (Pearl Mix)
Monday WON 3-10 (Broadbackbob)
Sunday WON 11-10 (Captain Conan)
Saturday WON 15-8 (Far West)
Friday WON 7-4 (Dynaste)
SO WHAT DOES HE DO? HE NAPS AT 10-1: If you expect Daqman to call a short-priced ‘easy’ to continue his sequence, you’d be wrong. His nap was 11.0 on BETDAQ at 8.30 a.m. He so rated the horse ‘a crazy price’, he upped his stakes to jackpot level!
It’s not easy avoiding the dreaded yips! If you hit a winning patch, or a losing run, doesn’t matter which, the temptation is to change your methods.
Worse. You get that hesitation and poor decision-making which has golfers nudging a putt wide, or ‘freezing’ altogether, unable to move the putter one inch! They call it the yips.
At its very worst, you could be hacking at the ball, or making air shots, your confidence broken by nerves and ‘expectation.’ Can Daqman hit another one straight down the fairway? Well, I’ll try.
What keeps me on the straight and narrow is the constant search for value, and how much easier it is on BETDAQ of a morning. Some 22 of the 28 races I have featured as Daq Value in my bets at the foot of the column have been better ‘books’ of offers than SP.
That’s not hard when the bookies do what they did at at Kempton Park last night, hiking their take-out to 21% (I’m talking about the 121% SP race in which we were win and place Be Perfect, 2nd 10-1).
Let’s start with the excuses: I found a good one at Ffos Las but it’s abandoned; the novice races at Ascot and Haydock, featuring Nicholls v McCain, could go either way. Ok, Daqman, spikes on, shoulders open and tee off!
1.30 Ascot Nicky Henderson does well on this day. He scores in the handicap hurdle and is going for a hat-trick in this beginners’ chase.
But the hurdles form of Minella Class will certainly waggle your putter! The Oscar gelding seemed to lose his way last season, but he has done well after a break.
Like Arthurian Legend, Restless Harry and Tenor Nivernais, he has contested a Graded hurdle, so I suggest that the winner of this could have a touch of class and go on to better things.
Henderson then has a hot-pot, Close Touch, in the 2.05 novices’ hurdle. Sometime on this famous fairway at Ascot, he could chip one in today, but following him race by race, stop at a winner, is made tricky because he runs two in the 3.50.
1.55 Haydock I didn’t like the look of the Graduation Chase (1.20), with Paul Nicholls’ Domtaline having ground worries and Kumbeshwar prone to a jumping error too far.
This novice chase is more interesting but just as tricky, with Poungach for Nicholls this time but preferring a soundish surface, and the danger, Knock A Hand, loving it soft, but with only a neck to spare over Gullinbursti.
Even then, I might not have named the winner if Super Duty does as well as over hurdles (second to the very smart Simonsig) and lives up to Don McCain’s bullish ‘he’s pretty good.’
2.30 Haydock McCain v Nicholls again, with Don excited about Clondaw Kaempfer’s good win at Aintree, and Nicholls expecting to give him a shock with Landscape. Close call, as is the same stable contest in the last (3.40) between Vinstar and Varom.
2.40 Ascot Venetia Williams is a dab hand at first timers in a handicap, and Kapga De Cerisy has assumed favouritism on BETDAQ over the sequence horses, Royale’s Charter. I shall take the hint.
3.05 Haydock Close call again. The full brother to Grands Crus, David Pipe’s grey Gevrey Chambertin, is one of my horses to follow and I shall hope that Wilton Milan is making a price for me.
3.15 Ascot It would be unusual to see an older horse win this; eight is the ceiling on the record. Opposing weight and age could provide us with a value bet.
Nez Rouge is only just out of the novice stage at 11 years old and makes infrequent appearances as if rarely sound (in fact, has only ever had nine races under Rules).
Earth Planet has won only once in more than 30 starts and it’s getting on for three years since The Sawyer was last seen in the winners’ enclosure.
Of the youngsters, Carrickboy is high in the weights and has not won beyond 19f; Loch Ba has been tonked a stone by the handicapper; Politeo is hard to win with, though can go well fresh; and The Rainbow Hunter also rarely finds that pot of gold.
I see it between last year’s winner, Prophete De Guye, who is quite capable of putting back-to-back wins together, and Brackloon High, on which Richard Johnson has scored four wins and three places from seven rides.
Has a smart turn of foot on a decent surface, and 11.0 on BETDAQ this morning looked a crazy price. If you accept that the old boys can’t win, you could be in an underround situation, getting 10-1. Straight down the fairway!
3.50 Ascot Nicky Henderson has had an easy time of it in the last half dozen runnings with a couple of odds-on winners. This time he could defy the weights with Petit Robin at a much better price.
There’s been no success in the decade for anything carrying above 11st 3lb. but Petit Robin has a touch of class and invariably goes well fresh; that’s all Nicky can expect of him.
The other Henderson hope, First In The Queue, also wins first time back but he’s already done it – in August – when galvanized by A.P. McCoy.
Of the Pipe pair, The Pier could do with some rain and Dan Breen, like Bourne and Starluck struggling to recoup novice form, is claimed off (again like Bourne, but Bourne is said to be back to his best at home).
Ifyouletmefinish has already finished behind both Petit Robin and Starluck, and it seems to me that man Henderson has found a good opportunity in a race of strugglers and stragglers so ‘Robin’ is pin high.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 6.6pts win SUPER DUTY (1.55 Haydock)
BET 6.6pts win KAPGA DE CERISY (2.40 Ascot)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: DAQ VALUE BET 3pts win (nap) BRACKLOON HIGH (3.15 Ascot)
BET 6pts win PETIT ROBIN and 4pts win BOURNE (3.50 Ascot)
HORSES TO FOLLOW: Gevrey Chambertin (3.05 Haydock)
* Daqman’s bets are staked to win 20 points, so you know the offer he took (20 divided by the stake) but jackpot bets aim for higher returns, as stated.
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