‘TRIPLE CROWN BID CONFIRMED’: YOU READ IT HERE YESTERDAY: ‘Camelot will light up the Leger,’ said Daqman in his Sunday column, and today the Racing Post headlines confirmed his participation at Doncaster in September, with no intervening contest.
LEGER LIFTED BACK TO THE HEIGHTS: This will lift the ‘once and future’ kingpin St Leger back to the heights, says his column today. But Daqman warns that we must start writing home about it now.
It hit the headlines when I bought Desert Orchid. No, I couldn’t afford the horseflesh but, as a national-paper racing editor, I secured the rights to ‘interviews’ with Dessie. One of the posh papers called that a ‘first’.
This also included the day-to-day details of what he had for breakfast, what his stable ‘lad’ had to say about him, what exercise and gallops he had. That stuff.
Even ‘old grumpy’ himself, trainer David Elsworth, entered into the spirit of things, and acted with me as Dessie’s mouthpiece. Together we were the great grey’s ghost-writers, keeping him in the public eye.
We didn’t go as far as the Black Caviar team: there were no kids in Dessie tea-shirts but, in the razzmatazz of the modern ‘celeb’ world, what’s wrong with that? Business-wise, you get left behind, if you don’t do it.
Why should the Chelseas and the Manchester Citys make millions from their strips to help pay for players of international calibre, while financial support for our major races suffers from this absence of modern business method and lack of PR?
We had a few flags for Frankel but between Royal Ascot and his next race, there will be nothing but the odd gallops report. The public will have to be educated about the Sussex Stakes.
There’s bags more time before Camelot and the St Leger. But the build-up to Doncaster has got to start now. No creeping up to it, with a few Racing Post headlines.
This is not a local event, within the locale of our sport. We are talking about reaching out to the public at large, who – never mind Frankel and Black Caviar – are about to witness a triple jump into racing history that ranks above or alongside any Olympics feat of the next few weeks.
Even now, when you ask the man in the street, who was the greatest modern racehorse, the majority of non-racing folk will say Nijinsky or Desert Orchid, depending on their age.
I know, I’ve seen a TV interviewer out, canvassing that question. And that was just before a race for which Frankel had achieved Racing Post headlines but, seemingly, with precious little in the general Press, on TV or, as Hayley Turner opines in the Post today, online.
I would give Camelot the Arthurian treatment. Certainly in bloodstock terms, it will be a case of ‘rex quondam rex futurus.’ The once kingpin Triple Crown may now be the future again.
Life is all about fame, fashion and glory, mostly that of our leaders, whether we view them with disdain (politicians), horror (despots) or envy (celebs). There are two lives other than that: the one underneath and the one that takes advantage of the hype.
It is in the latter category that the punter sits back, smiles wryly and prepares to assess the true odds, turning any hype situation to his advantage.
But he should know that there is no racing without hype, and our sport should be warned that there is no racing without the punter, whether he is a backer within the game or the man in the street looking for a hero.
Perhaps the Irish Derby is, sadly, the best example of PR failure. How on earth can they be struggling, messing about – like we did with the Derby – over which day (night) they run it and concerned at their ‘image problem.’
I used to love that day at The Curragh; there was a garden party atmosphere, like Flemington for the Melbourne Cup. They must work on that for starters.
But aren’t they hiding their light? Ireland must surely be tub-thumping over the English. They win all our best races and, as I said yesterday, haven’t they got the best Derby of them all!
No question-mark, because that’s not a question; it’s purely rhetorical. Because the results show that there is no question about it.
How can a race won consecutively by Montjeu, Sinndar, Galileo, High Chaparral, then – skip two years – Hurricane Run and Dylan Thomas, and now Camelot, not be regarded as anything other than the best Derby in the world?
Only Sea The Stars is missing from the modern list of greats. Who? What did he do, asks the man in the street. See the what?
See what I mean; that’s what.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 3pts win FROSTY BERRY (3.30 Pontefract)
BET 2.5pts win HARD ROAD (5.00 Pontefract)
BET 4pts win VITO VOLTERRA and 2pts win SIR TREVOR (6.00 Pontefract
BET 2.3pts win (nap) ON KHEE (8.10 Windsor)
BET 3.8pts win CATHEDRAL and 3pts win (stakes saver) HENRY ALLINGHAM (8.25 Ffos Las)
BET 0.8pts win and place SWIFT WINGED (8.40 Windsor)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 3 x 2pt win doubles and 1pt win treble Hard Road (5.00 Pontefract), Hoyam (6.40 Windsor), On Khee (8.10 Windsor)
* Daqman’s selections are backed to win 20 points (unless otherwise stated) 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.
Did you know that as well as checking the realtime prices on BETDAQ below – you can also log into your account and place your bets directly into BETDAQ from BETDAQ TIPS.
