FABULOUS FIVE OUT OF FIVE FOR DAQMAN: King of the tipsters Daqman made Doncaster his own yesterday with five winners from five races. One jackpot race, one winner. One nap, one winner.
BACK-TO-BACK NAPS UP: Daqman napped Ashdan (WON 4-5), following Thursday’s success with Wild Coco (WON 7-4) and the opening-day near miss when he switched to Kempton for Girl Of Cadiz (2nd 8-1), beaten a length.
72 POINTS PROFIT IN ONE DAY: Daqman’s five-timer yesterday produced a profit of 71.60 points with the single bets alone. Here’s how the day went:
WON 7-4 SIR PRANCEALOT (one bet, Flying Childers): ‘Sir Prancealot stands out.. maybe even a nap opportunity’
WON 9-4 SIR GRAHAM WADE (saver of two bets; main bet, Caravan Rolls On, hampered)
WON 5-1 TIMES UP (two jackpot bets, Doncaster Cup, Times Up and High Jinx (2nd 11-2), a typical big-race one-two from Daqman
WON 4-6 CERTIFY (one bet, saver, May Hill Stakes; main bet was a non-runner)
WON 4-5 ASHDAN (one bet, nap). Before the race: A serious Classic prospect, said Daqman. After the race: Quoted as low as 14-1 for the 2,000 Guineas.
But for Camelot and Frankel, racing’s resurgent bubble could have burst this year. Tennis, athletics, cycling, swimming, and all those sports raised to a higher level by a fantastic Olympics, would have left racing in the shadows it created for itself with the appalling public relations of the doping inquiries and whips fiasco.
Camelot and Frankel have simply had nothing to stop them, both unbeaten, but geared to different dreams of immortality, the one setting up a boggling sequence of success, the other heading today for the first Triple Crown since Nijinsky in 1970.
Camelot will succeed and the shiver down my spine will be in memory of Northern Dancer, and that I have been there to see his progeny down the line to Camelot – through Montjeu via Sadlers Wells – and back again to Nijinsky, himself a son of Northern Dancer.
That’s the greatness of racing. While those Olympics winners surprised a few by naming their coaches, trainers and dieticians for credit, racing takes for granted the immense behind-the-scenes backdrop of breeding, stable care and training skills that go into winning a race.
Thanks for a great season. And let’s today be grateful for the horse itself and thankful that a great industry survives despite the meddlers. Come on Camelot: it’s not over until the fat bookie stops singing!
2.25 Doncaster (Champagne Stakes) The last Guineas winner from this race was in 1992 and it has cut up badly this year, though still a dramatic contest, as Dundonnell goes head to head with Toronado.
Dundonnell beat a similarly small field to win the Acomb at York but all were previous winners and two of them have scored since.
Toronado’s collateral first time out was just as impressive: second and third from his maiden have won four since and been in the frame a total of nine times.
His subsequent Ascot win, another small field in a slow-run race, was nothing special, but overall, on a line through One Word More, he could be on around the same mark as Dundonnell.
Tha’ir and Birdman, fourth and seventh at Goodwood (Maxentius behind), are joint-top ratings, but that’s because they are well exposed and this is their mark.
Dundonnell is in the Guineas betting, Toronado quoted for the Derby. Unsinkable and Tha’r may take them along but Toronado made his own pace at Newbury – and needs to, if he is to draw the sting out of Dundonnell – as a stamina horse with speed, a potentially lethal combination.
3.00 Doncaster (Portland Handicap) Stats can be strange things and often prove nothing: or is it possible a five-year-old can win this for the sixth consecutive season.
By this time of year, the handicapper has seen plenty in his bid to get them all to finish in line: in fact, he’s logged this lot in 119 appearances this season!
The stats are conflicting but some runners are set apart from the others in that they have had very little racing and should be fresh for an autumn campaign.
Beacon Lodge (big weight), Captain Dunne (front runner), Hallelujah (withdrawn for lack of rain), Face The Problem, Move In Time (first race in visors), Singeur, Edge Closer and Kaldoun Kingdom have raced only three or four times in 2012.
Kaldoun Kingdom (16.0 on BETDAQ as I write) likes the track, is overdue a win after some excellent efforts recently, and is trying to earn a penalty so that he gets into the Ayr Gold Cup.
From the form horses, Prodigality is a bit of a bridesmaid (three seconds and his only win in a class 4); Rex Imperator should get the pace that helped him win at Windsor; Face The Problem has failed to overcome a 7lb rise for winning on today’s course; Picabo is up in the ratings but down in the weights.
Steps would have been a good bet, had it remained on the soft side, but it’s now more Face The Problem’s ground, and his 14.5 with Kieren Fallon up is good value, despite some reservations about him.
3.40 Doncaster (St Leger, for Preview: see Tuesday archive) My stats preview gave Thought Worthy maximum indicators (a Derby runner bred for stamina and winner of the Great Voltigeur), but he’s been very easy to back all week.
And you can now say that about everything in the race, except Camelot: it’s 14.5 bar one on BETDAQ this morning in a 102% ‘book’ of offers. It means most place bets in the race will return more than three times a win on Camelot.
Godolphin (5 Leger wins), Sir Henry Cecil (4) and John Gosden (2) are all attacking this hot-pot, and Gosden voices in the trade paper what I’ve also been saying about Frankel: ‘There’s no point Camelot having a hollow victory. He might as well have a proper race.’
I’m always bleating on about how the Derby comes too soon and how the Arc is often won by a late developer, so I’m going for the improver of the race who didn’t see a racecourse until June.
Despite being from a family of milers, Guarantee is the only home runner to have won over today’s distance (Ireland’s Ursa Major has but he may need rain).
The only doubt about Camelot is the trip and I shall take Guarantee (19.5 offers) and Voltigeur winner Thought Worthy as the ones most likely to get to his quarters before we find whether the favourite has another gear for this trip.
My verdict on the St Leger is: 1 Camelot, 2 Guarantee, 3 Thought Worthy. Not the end of the Classic season, as there’s another one to come in Ireland at 6.05 pm, and I’ll be having a Daq Multiples Leger double.
4.15 Doncaster (Park Stakes) Though Libranno was a Group-2 winner as a juvenile, he’s never made it at that level since; nor has Penitent, except when heavy ground spoiled the race; and Soul has reached only Group 3 on heavy, the same level as Pastoral Player.
I’m suggesting that Strong Suit and Lethal Force, who have already beaten Pastoral Player, Soul and Libranno, as one-two in the Hungerford, are the class horses of this race.
Strong Suit is a pound better for a neck defeat by Lethal Force that day when the three-year-old stole the race in first-time blinkers.
The blinkers could ‘bounce’ today – they often fail on Flat horses next time out – but, on the other hand, Lethal Force, as the younger horse, should have further improvement in him.
Another ingredient that thickens the soup is that Soul lost a shoe in the Hungerford when screwing sideways at the start. He was favourite for that race and certainly has to be considered here, making this Park Stakes a three-way contest.
Both Soul (fourth Golden Jubilee) and Strong Suit (Haydock Cup) have been sprinting recently and their yards have been worried about what trip their one really needs. At that rate, Lethal Force might mug them again. Clive Cox says he’ll go for it, so a win and place should at least give you your money back.
4.30 The Curragh (Renaissance Stakes) The same Soul who runs at Doncaster, beat Firebeam and Maarek at Newbury but that was heavy ground. You can also delete Fire Lily’s races on the heavy, leaving this progressive filly’s form figures at 11 since the Spring.
At the same time, After seems to have lost the plot since then but is dropping back to the 6f over which Fire Lily beat him at Leopardstown in June.
Lady Wingshot has twice had After behind over 7f but may struggle for speed back to 6f on drier ground and After has drifted like a dog on a raft this morning to 26.0. The Ballydoyle one they want is Starspangled Banner (at 6.4).
The one-time top sprinter didn’t like the soft ground on his comeback behind Fire Lily but is clearly expected to make a better fist of it today.
6.05 The Curragh (Irish St Leger) Fame And Glory (for Ballydoyle) or Aiken (for John Gosden) have chances of stable St Leger doubles if Camelot or Thought Worthy have won at Doncaster.
Like six out of the last eight winners of this, both Fame And Glory have won a Group 2, while Hartani (Group 3) and Brown Panther (Listed) don’t come up to that mark.
I’ve never been a Brown Panther fan and Hartani will struggle to up the modest reputation of three-year-olds in this race. I’ll take the 6.6 Aiken, with a saver on Fame And Glory.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 7.4pts win TORONADO (2.25 Doncaster)
BET 1.4pts win and place FACE THE PROBLEM, and 1.3pts win and place KALDOUN KINGDOM (3.00 Doncaster)
BET 1pt win and 4pts place GUARANTEE (3.40 Doncaster)
BET 3.8pts win and place LETHAL FORCE (4.15 Doncaster)
BET 3.7pts win STARSPANGLEDBANNER and 1.3pts win (saver) FIRE LILY (4.30 The Curragh)
BET 3.5pts win AIKEN and 1.4pts win (saver) FAME AND GLORY (6.05 The Curragh).
DAQ MULTIPLES LEGER DOUBLE: 4pts win double CAMELOT (nap, 3.40 Doncaster) and AIKEN (6.05 The Curragh)
* Daqman’s bets are staked to win 20 points, so you know the offers he took by dividing 20 by the stake.
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