IT’S A CLASSIC DAY FOR 2012: Though Camelot is not running today – but Born To Sea is – Daqman argues that the afternoon is vital for the Guineas and Derby market leader, as top two-year-old trials are run in Ireland and France.
ONE TO PAY FOR YOUR BETS: Daqman’s Sunday betting plan is to lay ‘One’ horse – the one who’s always finishing second – and hope that pays for two win bets and a big double across the cards at Carlisle and Huntingdon.
Watch and Learn! Those thinking to get on Born To Sea before he closes down Camelot at the front of the 2,000 Guineas and Derby markets this afternoon could find the reverse happening.
For, at precisely the same time that Born To Sea seemingly has an easier race at Leopardstown (1.30), Learn could take the Saint-Cloud Criterium International.
Learn did the donkey work up front, so was only fourth to Camelot in the Racing Post Trophy, and success for him today would propel Camelot into the Classics stratosphere.
At a stroke, it would place the Racing Post Trophy on a pedestal, diminishing the chances of the apparently-invincible French ace, Dabirsim, and placing Ballydoyle firmly in the driving seat for 2012.
There’s plenty of collateral today: Dabirsim beat Veneto little more than a length in the Longchamp Grand Criterium, and it could be said that Vasco Bere was the ‘moral’ when beaten a similar distance by Dabirsim but giving him 3lb on a provincial track in July.
Aidan O’Brien threw a similar spanner in the works last year when Roderic O’Connor won this Saint-Cloud race and produced a hurried rewrite of the Guineas betting.
But today’s party contains more potential crackers: a Highclere Derby hope, Bonfire, trained by Andrew Balding; and Christophe Soumillon’s mount, Salair Haut, whose sire, Dalakhani won this race in 2002.
Bonfire and Salair Haut have run – and won – only once and ‘could be anything’, as they say, with all before them.
We still haven’t finished: the two best trials for this Criterium are the Prix Des Chenes and the Prix Thomas Bryon, in which Saint Pellerin and French Fifteen were runners-up to Vizir Bere and Abtaal respectively.
Born To Sea is also under attack by Ballydoyle, with a massive broadside of three of the seven runners for the Killavullan Stakes at Leopardstown trained by Aidan O’Brien.
As in the Paris area, the going in Ireland is soft, and O’Brien’s apparent number one today, Nephrite, is by the soft-ground stallion, Pivotal.
Through National Stakes form, Vault gives the line to O’Brien’s Coventry winner, Power, who got within half a length of Parish Hall in the Dewhurst, and Ishvana, fourth in the Anglesey, will tell us more about the strength of fillies like Fire Lily and, therefore, Maybe.
Incidentally, the Gay Kelleway runner in the Criterium International, Swing Alone, made her debut behind Maybe at Royal Ascot, Her sire, Celtic Swing, won the French Derby.
All the (racing) world’s a circle, isn’t it. Watch and learn.
DAQMAN’S BETS
LAY to win 10pts THE GREY ONE and BET 3.4pts win (to win 20pts) MR BACHSTER (2.25 Huntingdon)
WIN-40 JACKPOT: BET 3.2pts win LACKAMON (2.40 Carlisle)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 3.4pts win double Mr Bachster (2.25 Huntingdon) and Lackamon (2.40 Carlisle)
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