DAQMAN LANDS 17th JACKPOT AT 9.2: Daqman was on two big-race gambles yesterday. The 9.2 Betdaq value about Tante Sissi (WON 9-2) was landed in the Mares Finale but Cai Shen (2nd 4-1), tipped early in the week when 10-1, was forced wide in the Winter Derby. Tante Sissi was his 17th winning jackpot bet since December 3rd.
PROFITS SOAR TO 230 POINTS: It sent his jackpot earnings in that time to 230.90, of which 169.37 has come in 2012, with winning SPs including 20-1, 14-1, 11-1, 10-1 (twice), 9-1, 8-1, 7-1, 13-2 and 9-2 (twice).
64 POINTS UP IN THREE RACING DAYS: After Spinning Waters (WON 13-2) on Thursday and Goulanes (WON 20-1) on Friday, Tante Sissi boosted his overall profit in three racing days to around 64 points.
They’re off on turf for Flat 2012. And every punter at The Curragh today should see the seven-race card through to the end, as the main event seems to be after racing.
No, it’s not some new boy band (Room 101 please) but a racecourse workout for Ballydoyle’s Newmarket Guineas and Epsom Derby favourite, Camelot, alongside other stable stars.
On the card itself, Aidan O’Brien has 1,000 Guineas and Oaks hope, Twirl, in action for the all-aged Group-3, speaking of which the eponymous Aidan the horse runs in the last. So does Speaking Of Which.
2.30 The Curragh: Ballydoyle won this with favourites for three years running up to 2004 but there’s been no winning favourite since, and no O’Brien winner, as the maestro has mainly started his season slowly on the track since then.
But punters are expecting him to be chopping down trees early like last year, as his Forester is a short-priced favourite for this opener, though strongly pressed early doors by Jim Bolger (twice winner of the race recently) with Dawn Approach.
Whose dawn it will be may be determined by the 2012 AW form of the stables: Stack 33% (3-9), O’Brien 25% (1-4), Bolger 23% (11-47) and Lynam 8% (8-86), the rest nowhere.
Could Stack’s Dylanbaru win it and give the sire Footstepsinthesand success in the openers, five minutes apart, at two meetings today (see Sonoran Sands at Wincanton)?
3.00 The Curragh: Ballydoyle got off the mark with subsequent Nell Gwyn runner-up Sing Softly in this last year and in 2008 with the Group horse, Georgebernardshaw.
Both had raced on the Dundalk Polytrack over the winter. Ahimsa has not done so, but she’s the right sex: fillies are four out of five since 2006.
That suggests you concentrate on the bottom eight in the race, where David Wachman has two runners, Domino Queen (44.0 on Betdaq this morning) and Step Lightly (22.0, Seamie Heffernan). His Dundalk winner on Friday took David to 2-4 (that’s 50%) this year, all of them three-year-olds.
3.30 The Curragh: Tommy Stack is going for a treble in this: it would be his fifth win since 2002 if he can score with Great Huzzar (6.2), who has been gelded since winning his maiden on the soft last summer.
The paper favourite, Mountain Coral, has fitness – but not age – on his side and the dual course winner Maarek is up in the ratings and will want it to stay soft.
The old firm of Richard Fahey and Paul Hanagan, over for the Lincoln (Arabian Spirit 5.00), have a 7f-winning mare in Jeannie Galloway, so should love a fast pace, but her form figures first time back are 666. And route 66 doesn’t often take you to the winners’ enclosure.
4.00 The Curragh (Park Express Stakes): This is the will-he-won’t-he acid test of Aidan O’Brien’s start to the season: Misty For Me’s sister, Twirl, must indeed do a twirl in front of the Ballydoyle fans.
Three-year-olds usually win this (6-10), and she’s as short as a politician’s promise at 2.52 as I write for a race won last year by the subsequent Gladness and Windsor Forest Stakes winner.
Born To Sea backers will want to see Aaraas redeem their classic vouchers; she was third at Leopardstown when Born To Sea was turned over, second at odds on, in October.
Easy winner of that race? Aidan O’Brien with Nephrite, so we’re quickly back to Twirl here. And, if you’re looking to Princess Sinead for the upset, that one was pipped at The Curragh in September by today’s seeming Ballydoyle second string, Homecoming Queen.
That leaves you looking for a resurgence from Janey Muddles, who seemed to go backwards after her maiden. Safer, I think, to do a Twirl. But, as I have warned a thousand times, this is another year, and last term’s two-year-old form could well go out of the window.
5.00 The Curragh (Irish Lincolnshire): With one exception in 10 years, the winner comes from 9st and below, and the SPs are shocking: 33-1, 25-1, 20-1, 14-1, 12-1 among the last nine. So, instead of a twirl you need a tilt at an outsider.
The stats hold one vital clue: as I look back, winner after winner is drawn in the highest five or the lowest five; that also applies to four out of five runners-up.
That disposes of half the field, but leaves in the Fahey-claimed-off Take It To The Max, Tommy Stake’s Sikara, Dermot Weld’s Font Of Wisdom and hardly condemns Sharestan, all of them at the front of the market.
But, based on those recent winning SPs, we need to find big offers for our pound, so I will rely on Fahey-Hanagan with Arabian Spirit at 19.0 as I write.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 0.9pts win and place STEP LIGHTLY (3.00 The Curragh)
BET 3.8pts win GREAT HUZZAR (3.30 The Curragh)
BET 10pts win (nap) TWIRL (4.00 The Curragh)
BET 1.1pts win and place ARABIAN SPIRIT (5.00 The Curragh).
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