10-LENGTHS BIG-RACE WINNER AT 6-1: Daqman finished in front for the second day running yesterday with a 25-point profit from Prodigality (WON 2-1) and Voleuse De Coeurs (WON 6-1), the 10-lengths winner of the Irish Cesarewitch, continuing this super sequence of autumn big-race success:
WON 11-2 VERSE OF LOVE, Chester, September 1
WON 7-2 from 8.8 SIR GRAHAM WADE, Haydock Old Borough Cup, September 8
WON 16-1 CAPTAIN RAMIUS, Ayr Gold Cup, September 22
WON 9-2 from 7.0 LOCAL HERO, Market Rasen, September 29
WON 9-1 BRONZE ANGEL, Newmarket Cambridgeshire, September 29
WON 9-4 HAWAAFEZ, Ascot Cumberland Lodge Stakes, October 6
WON 6-1 SKILFUL, Ascot Challenge Cup, October 6
WON 13-1 SILASOL, Longchamp Marcel Boussac, October 7
3rd 9-1 from 16.0 TOMINATOR, Newmarket Cesarewitch (also Countrywide Flame 2nd 7-1), October 14
WON 6-1 from 9.0 VOLEUSE DE COEURS, Irish Cesarewitch, October 15
I’m aiming to prosper with Fallon again today….. Kieren, who landed the Cesarewitch with a masterclass ride on top-weight Aaim To Prosper on Saturday, has a similar task in bog-heavy ground with a top weight this afternoon.
Punters did reasonably well in the mud on Sunday. They landed 21 winners between odds on and 7-1 against. It’s a sudden change of ground that catches you out.
Not unexpectedly, both Salisbury and Windsor are heavy today, with the favourites most likely to be opposed at Salisbury, the recent winners Les Verguettes (3.25) and the Sir Henry Cecil hat-trick seeker Malekov (5.00).
Les Verguettes (3.25) has just won after a break, so is vulnerable to the ‘bounce’ factor, as well as making this leap into the dark morass of mud, though his sire, Iffraaj, got Wootton Basset, a winner on ‘very soft.’
Malekov scored on good to firm last time so today’s contrast in surface is a big concern. Otherwise, since this is a class-3 handicap, we should get some consistency in the form.
The snag with this 1m 6f race is that, at this time of year, you get jumpers having a pipe-opener, or merely chancing their arm before an NH target (like Tominator).
So it is that Allied Answer, a heavy-ground maiden winner in Ireland, has moved to Steve ‘Local Hero’ Gollings with hurdles in mind. Gollings also runs the already-dual-purpose horse, Into Wain, a five-year-old tried at Listed level.
It’s a long time since Woolfall Treasure won; The Betchworth Kid has scored once in three years; and, though Suzi’s A Class Act is weighted to reverse Yarmouth form with Malekov, the grey filly’s stable is firing blanks (20 losers in 45 days).
I took 5.6 about another grey, Spifer, whose sire, Motivator, has a near-20% strike rate on heavy ground. Only a few days after threatening to quit if he didn’t get big-race mounts, Kieren Fallon steered Aaim To Prosper to win the Cesarewitch from a welterweight in the mud like Spifer has today.
A third grey on a grey day in the mud, Duke Of Clarence (5.10) gets a tick in the heavy-ground box on account of his dam but there are no guarantees. The Duke has spent much of a short career on AW. So, too, Inthar.
The one I fancy at a price is the Jeremy filly Intent (11.0 on BETDAQ). She came out again too quickly after her Wolver win. Jeremy has got 19 of his 27 winners as a stallion on ground good to soft to heavy, and Intent’s dam’s sire has had 116 winners within that parameter of going return.
Musselburgh, which seems to have escaped the latest rain, has two class-3 handicaps to get our betting teeth into, at the near-extremes of 7f and 2m.
That two-miler (3.15) will again be riddled with potential hurdles hopes; Gordonsville and Orsippus were massive at 12.0 and 19.0 offers respectively this morning, as horses aimed high and now brought back to their true level.
Awesome Pearl and Tappanappa have never won on turf, and Jonny Delta is unreliable, so I make course-specialist Los Nadis the stakes saver.
Capaill Liath (2.40) has been a nearly horse on heavy ground and was left at the start at Chester. Today is more his ground and trip, but those close calls have him a few pound high in the handicap and there’s not much between him (he’s another grey!) and both Common Touch and Xilerator on Ayr running.
I shall have a pound on the 18.0 BETDAQ offer Diescentric to have a change of luck. The Dieses gelding only returned to the track in August.
Next time out, his penultimate start, he would have been placed in a class-2 at Doncaster, a grade higher than today, but for being badly hampered a furlong out.
Staying in the higher grade, Diescentric was badly drawn 6 in a big-field handicap at Newmarket, in which the first three to finish came from stalls 20, 14 and 21.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 1.1pts win and place DIESCENTRIC (2.40 Musselburgh)
BET 1.8pts win and place GORDONSVILLE and 1.1pts win and place ORSIPPUS, with 1.7pts win (stakes saver) LOS NADIS (3.15 Musselburgh)
LAY 10pts MALEKOV and BET 4.3pts win (nap) SPIFER (5.00 Salisbury)
BET 2pts win and place INTENT (5.10 Windsor)
* Daqman stakes his bets to win 20 points. You, therefore, know the offer he took (divide 20 by the stake).
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