HEAD FOR THE HENNESSY WITH 27.0 BETDAQ OUTSIDER: Newbury’s Hennessy meeting opens today with fine weather forecast and Daqman rates a 27.0 confirmed runner as the value Betdaq offer for the big race at this stage.
SEQUENCE-KING ON NAPS AND JACKPOTS TRAIL: Daqman is intent on another sequence. His latest lays run ended at six (current 75% strike rate) but his last nap won, Fists Of Fury (WON 1-1), and his jackpot bet, Dynaste (WON 7-1), scored last Saturday. He had seven naps in a row earlier this month. Today there’s a jackpot bet and a banker nap.
Your mouse should cursor a course to the Hennessy. A bit ante-post on Muirhead with Betdaq, at 27.0 as I write, will get you involved before the race is weeded out by the weather.
Today’s opening skirmishes at Newbury will tell us more but the worst it’s likely to be is on the easy side of good, which knocks out a few plodders and leaves such as Muirhead – he’s won on firm, he’s won on heavy – with an advantage.
Muirhead, classy enough to be fifth in the Champion Hurdle, has had just five chase runs in his life, winning the Munster National for Noel Meade, but hampered when making progress behind Exmoor Ranger in the big one at Ascot a month back.
12.30 Newbury Favourites have failed in all six runnings of this, with odds-on shots stuffed (both runners-up) in two of the last three years.
Not only does early novice form tend to get turned over once we reach the winter months, but 2m 5f finds them out, as trainers try to ascertain what handicap scope they have.
Paper-favourite Tempest River has already failed to make the step up though his defeat over a furlong shorter at Aintree a month ago was his reappearance run, and may have been needed.
Kentford Grey Lady, whose jumping has been far from fluent, was well behind Tempest River in a bumper, but Miss Milborne was just in front of him in another NH Flat race.
1.35 Newbury Tony McCoy and Jonjo O’Neill, last year’s winners with Full Of Joy, go for the double via Sentimental Journey, though four-year-olds find it hard to beat older horses at this stage (last won in 2005).
The five recent winners have all been aged five and six, but again some of these novices face a step up from the minimum to that same 2m 5f, this time in a handicap, with only Sentimental Journey and Psi having won one at this trip.
Psi’s win was in very slow time, which helped him break a bridesmaid sequence of five times placed out of six, and he’s 12lb higher in the ratings. I’ll take the Jonjo ‘Journey’.
2.10 Newbury My last naps sequence contained a 5-1 winner but I also did some ‘buying money’ at odds on.
I reckon Grands Crus is capable of setting up his won sequence and, stepping out of the hurdles shadow of Big Buck’s, can go right to the top as a chaser. I shall make him a maximum-stakes nap, which is called a banker.
2.45 Newbury There have been no winners of this from the ‘rags’ below 11st 5lb. They simply haven’t had enough class.
This time the O’Neill-McCoy contender, Born Again, will have to live up to his name, with dismal efforts since his return from a long lay-off, though the team won it with a 14-1 shot in 2008 after his reappearance run back 31 lengths behind the winner.
Buffalo Bob won it last year off a similar mark, and he also trailed in on his one run back a fortnight ago. Trainer Kim Bailey is doing OK right now, and will have targeted this race, so 8.4 each way (2.83 place) looks a fair offer.
Leading Contender is better than the bare form but Richard Johnson wants Pavilion Bleu, back chasing after a modest time over hurdles, and 26.0 as I write.
They’re finding the grey Piraya very hard to win with, but he seems preferred to Quocotiep by Tom Scu. The novicy Rackham Lerouge has it all to prove but That’lldoboy (8.4) is at the right end of the handicap.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 8pts win SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY (1.35 Newbury)
BANKER: 20pts win GRANDS CRUS (2.10 Newbury)
BET 2.7pts win on each THAT’LLDOBOY and BUFFALO BOB (2.45 Newbury)
ANTE-POST: WIN-30 JACKPOT: 1.1pts win MUIRHEAD (27.0, Hennessy Gold Cup, Saturday)
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