YOUR DUTY TO BACK 50-1 VALUE IN THE CESAREWITCH: Daqman makes a case for big value 52.0 and 50.0 outsiders in the list of Cesarewitch offers on BETDAQ, and even the Dewhurst is punter friendly on the Daq, though the reputation of the Guineas favourite is at stake.
SHOCK-RESULT DAQMAN NAP AT 7.0: In fact, Daqman dares to oppose both the Dewhurst and Middle Park favourites. Is this reckless abandon or does he have good reasons to expect shocks? One must be that he can get 7.0 on BETDAQ about an unbeaten colt.
Newmarket Future Champions day? Who are they kidding! The alternative title would be The Birthday of Bolger’s Massive Dewhurst flops. And the Middle Park is no better: five out of the last six winners have failed to win another race.
So don’t bet on next year’s Classics with reckless abandon. Treat the 2013 Flat season as a new dawn. Approach these trials with a tight hold on your wallet.
Today’s star billing should be the Cesarewitch: punters want quality betting handicaps not odds-on shots in two-year-old races, and it’s ridiculous that the big handicap prizemoney is only around half of that offered to the Dewhurst winner.
Owners of big stakes-race winners get fortunes from breeding and don’t need huge raceday purses. The greedy bankers!
1.50 Newmarket (Challenge Stakes) The current second-season crop has a bad reputation but three-year-olds are four out of five in this.
And teams Hannon and Hills who have won it for the last two years, with Red Jazz and Strong Suit, saw that pair both beaten by a three-year-old, Lethal Force, in this year’s Hungerford, with Libranno stone last.
Two of today’s second-season animals, Fulbright and Reply, both have higher ratings (on 110) than did Lethal Force that day in August.
But of the three-year-olds I prefer Fencing. He has been a rare luckless one in the great John Gosden surge. Would have been placed in the St James’s Palace had he not been so badly baulked he sustained injury.
Comes to this fresh against horses which have shared a total of 60 runs this season. I could get 7.0 on BETDAQ this morning when many bookies went 11-2.
2.05 York Jamaican Bolt is penalized and Kaldoun Kingdom hasn’t won for two years, so I’ll dutch Steps (5.2 on BETDAQ this morning) and Pearl Blue (8.4), both good soft-ground sorts. But the main meaning of this race for punters is to reveal any draw bias for the 3.45 big sprint.
2.20 Newmarket (Middle Park Stakes) This is not the first of the much-hyped two-year-tests this season which could tell you virtually nothing for the future. Five of the last six winners of this failed to win another race.
The stand-outs from the results this century both proved to be top sprinters: Oasis Dream (2002), who was also to become a leading sire, and Dream Ahead (2010) but favourites have won only 3-10.
Reckless Abandon may be unbeaten but he has precious little to spare over Parliament Square, Moohaajim and Gale Force Ten on Ascot and Deauville form.
And there’s not much between Master Of War, Heavy Metal and Blaine on other form lines, so how you can take 2-1 this favourite I know not (Ladbrokes know they are onto a good thing and go 7-4).
In fact, though I’d love to see my horse-to-follow Blaine win it (he’s drifted like a dog on a raft), the one to stand out on form is Cristoforo Colombo, who must surely be value at 6.0, if Dawn Approach – only about a length in front of him at Royal Ascot – is the odds-on shot they think he is in the Dewhurst.
2.55 Newmarket (Dewhurst) This two-year-old test has its good years and its bad: Derby winner New Approach (2007) and Guineas and sequence scorer Frankel (2010) both ‘done well’; equally, there were massive flops: Intense Focus, Teofilo (not race after) and Parish Hall.
All those Dewhurst winners, apart from Frankel, were trained by Jim Bolger, who has a strong fav again this year. So Dawn Approach Guineas punters should note the three-from-four failure rate of the Bolger winners.
Again, favourites have won only 3-10 in the Dewhurst, and I’ll take a chance with unbeaten Ashdan from my 10 to follow. He’s 6.0, the only one seriously approaching Dawn in the market.
But the three other Irish horses, though massive prices here, are your turnkeys to collateral form for the future, particularly The Ferryman who gives you a line to Derby-hyped Mars.
The Dewhurst could be a tactical race. There’s certainly a tactical way to bet: as I write, BETDAQ has a list of offers with an incredible 101% probability total. Last year’s total at SP was 114%.
Since it’s around 9-4 against the favourite, according to the stats, and they’re betting about 3-10, I can afford to lay Dawn Approach at 5-2 on as I write. As a certain shrewdie called Wilde once said, I only have my reputation to lose.
3.10 York Remember that adage I spelled out yesterday: ‘back only heavy-ground York winners on heavy ground at York’? Well, local filly Royal Rascal comes close to that, having won on the course on soft in June.
In fact, she’s twice a York winner and went well when third in the Lowther. She obviously loves the Knavesmire and can be forgiven her bad run at Ayr behind today’s market leader, Mary’s Daughter, whom she was favourite to beat that day.
3.45 York (Sprint Trophy) Check back for any draw bias that emerged in the 2.05 race. Then lie back on the psychiatrist’s coach and explain why you are going to bet in a sprint at York on heavy ground.
Tell the man with the white coat, you have a 12.0 Prospect on BETDAQ about a horse which won the race last year and has dropped 10lb in the weights since the end of August. Doctor’s reply: You cannot be Sirius!
3.35 Newmarket (Cesarewitch) I wrote my ABC preview (Archive Thursday), expecting soft ground, but it’s now hard to predict after a dry night, with a sunny day forecast and a ‘light shower’ later.
I would guess ‘good to soft, good in places’, or the other way round, which makes the draw effect difficult to predict. When ‘soft’ has featured in the going return over the last 25 years, there has been no winner drawn higher than 19 and five out of seven in that time have come from stalls 2-12
That would cut a swathe of fancied horses: Montaser (20), Very Good Day (22), Alhellal (30), Olympiad (33), I Have A Dream (36). What the high call may need is an experienced old warhorse: it’s happened before and it’s happened with Henderson.
Nicky, who trained Caracciola to win at the age of 11, and Landing Light at eight, has Sentry Duty (he’s 10 and in stall 29) crashed down the weights, despite being sixth in each of the last two years.
Caracciola was runner-up aged 10 before winning the following year; Aaim To Prosper (winner in 2010) had run seventh the previous year.
Sentry Duty was sixth in Prosper’s race, beaten only about four lengths off 102, and sixth last year off 97. Today he is down to a rating another 10lb lower, on 87. Remember that Henderson runs him instead of Veiled, who was favourite when the weights came out. Sentry Duty is 52.0 on BETDAQ this morning.
The runner-up last year, Ermyn Lodge, is also out with the washing at 50.0, though he’s been saved for the race ever since. He was also runner-up in the Ascot Stakes last year.
Of the other high numbers, I Have A Dream has stamina to prove; Alhallal may need it soft; Lordofthehouse refused to race last time. But Olympiad and Montaser have had this as their target since midsummer.
In the low stalls, Aaim To Prosper seems to have too much weight; Motivado has stamina to prove; Hurricane Higgins, placed in top staying races at Goodwood and Doncaster, should go well though has had a long hard season; Countrywide Flame and the grey Tominator look hard to kick out of the frame.
Triumph Hurdle winner, ‘Flame’ has shone in 17 of his last 18 starts, while Tominator has verdicts over a bunch of these and seems the ideal type for the race, quietly allowed to tick over by Jonjo, with just five races all year.
Short list: That leaves me expecting the winner from Countrywide Flame, Ermyn Lodge, Hurricane Higgins, Montaser, Olympiad, Sentry Duty and Tominator, of which Olympiad is short on experience and a short price, considering he has to overcome a high draw, and Hurricane Higgins doesn’t want that word ‘soft’ in the going return.
With Countrywide Flame the obvious saver, and both Ermyn Lodge and Sentry Duty half-point bets, I can concentrate my stakes on Tominator – I took 16.0 to win 30 points on Thursday – and Montaser, perfectly trained for a coup in this, having followed the same route as the stable’s previous winner, Darley Sun.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 3.3pts win FENCING (nap, 1.50 Newmarket)
BET 4.7pts win STEPS and 2.7pts win PEARL BLUE (2.05 York)
BET 4pts win CRISTOFORO COLOMBO (2.20 Newmarket)
LAY 10pts DAWN APPROACH and BET 4pts win ASHDAN (2.55 Newmarket)
BET 5.7pts win ROYAL RASCAL (3.10 York)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: BET 2.7pts win MONTASER, and 0.5pts win and place on each ERMYN LODGE and SENTRY DUTY with, ante-post Thursday, 2pts win TOMINATOR; plus 0.7pts win (stakes saver) COUNTRYWIDE FLAME (3.35 Newmarket)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: BET 3.6pts win BUBBLY BELLINI and 2.7pts win SIRIUS PROSPECT (3.45 York)
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