STOUTE HANDICAPPER BIG VALUE TONIGHT: Daqman suggests that Sir Michael Stoute’s yard is one of the stables to follow mid-summer, and he takes 7.2 about one of his handicappers at Windsor tonight.
Who is playing catch-up? That’s what I look for at this time of year: trainers who are well behind their usual quota of winners but can be expected to strike form and make up the leeway.
I’m talking about the top yards which have the serious ammunition, particularly those which are known to come good from mid-summer onwards.
I would not include Richard Hannon, who is traditionally quick out of the gate: his current score (80), which is average for him and well behind runaway leader numerically, Mark Johnston (101), suggests less quality at East Everleigh, as the whitewash at Royal Ascot confirmed.
Mark you, Johnston is not striking it rich! Like Hannon he is well behind for money won, as O’Brien and Gosden pull out the plums. However, Johnston’s favourite prize-draw meeting is still to come, Goodwood in August.
The serious deficiency among the heavyweights is Sir Michael Stoute’s pittance of a return, despite the royal winner Estimate and the Hardwicke triumph of Sea Moon: less than half-a-million this season alongside nearer £5m from 2010-11.
As well as being the non-pareil in improving older horses, Stoute is a long-time shrewdie at plotting a handicap success; he can still teach Roger Charlton and James Fanshawe a thing or two.
The glaring flops of 2012 so far are Sir Mark Prescott, John Dunlop, David Elsworth, Luca Cumani, David Nicholls, Ed Dunlop, Henry Candy, Jeremy Noseda and, by his standards, Richard Fahey, who, though fourth in the trainers’ table, needs another 100 or so winners from somewhere to match his total in each of the last two years.
Jeremy Noseda is not getting that first-time-out strike-rate which set him among those few trainers who can get them ready at home.
Henry Candy and David Nicholls don’t seem to have the ammunition this year; John Dunlop is close to retirement and maybe David Elsworth, too, though he admits to making a ‘lazy’ start to the season and I have already said I wouldn’t write off such as Bonnie Brae, if the handicapper will relent a few pounds.
My long-term view for the rest of the season would be to look for shrewd handicap placings by Stoute, Cumani and Fahey, with Prescott to have one or two sequence horses set to climb from the low-grade handicaps.
But my more immediate man to follow would be Ed Dunlop: he is just striking some decent form, with 10 out of the last 13 runners reaching the frame, and statistically plenty to come from two-year-olds who have had their initial outings and should step up markedly in the next few weeks.
Another reason for topsy-turvy trainers’ figures is the soft ground sustained through much of the Spring and the summer racing so far. But the forecasters now expect a decent run of fair weather, though there may be variation, North to South, for a while yet.
Whereas the Pitman’s Derby going forecast for Saturday has been eased to soft-heavy, Windsor tonight is drying out in sunshine and Yarmouth’s expectation for Thursday is good to firm. Who would be a trainer, trying to plan for ground dependency through the UK weather maze?
The Stoute stable has the best strike rate at Windsor and has laid its stall out this evening, with Ryan Moore riding in three races in a row.
Duke Of Firenze (7.10 Windsor) was tempting at 7.2 on BETDAQ this morning, having made his return on the wrong ground over the wrong distance.
I understand that the lord-and-lady connections of Falkland (8.40) will be cruising down the river for tonight’s meeting (note the musical reference), and I don’t need to tell you that the Gosden-Buick partnership is barbecuing the opposition right now.
This afternoon at Wolverhampton, Grey Seal (4.45), only five lengths behind the Britannia winner at Kempton, should win a low-key first-time handicap for James Fanshawe.
DAQMAN’S BETS:
BET 10pts win (nap) GREY SEAL (4.45 Wolverhampton)
BET 3.2pts win DUKE OF FIRENZE (7.10 Windsor)
BET 4.3pts win FALKLAND (8.40 Windsor)
* Daqman’s selections are backed to win 20 points so, if you divide 20 by his stake, you know the Betdaq offer taken at the time of writing.
* Points are what you make them: if you bet in tenners, then 4pts win is £40; 3.2pts win is £32 (in fivers, those stakes would be £20 and £16). Daqman bets to a level return so that you can easily assess his tipping ability.
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