DAQMAN METHOD SAYS 15.5 OUTSIDERS SHOULD BE SHORTER: Daqman today hints at some of the ways to potentially knock out losers and increase the value of your bet. He finds two horses trading 15.5 on Betdaq this morning which should be shorter.


They can’t get that bull. Out-of-form stables are on the oche hitting the wire every day. Philip Hobbs has had nine places and Nigel Twiston-Davies five for only two wins from 63 runners between them, and I shall be against them again today.

If you are wary of laying them, the other way to look at horses you want to oppose is that, if you are convinced they are knockouts, they reduce the odds against you when you back something else in the race.

For instance, deleting Qaspal (3.00 Huntingdon), the Hobbs runner, takes the novices’ chase out of overround (only 104% anyway on Betdaq) and down to a 63% underround. Owen Glendower can now be deemed value, though a fraction of odds on.

Similarly, I wanted to knock the ‘Twiston’ runner, Stormhoek, out of the 107% probability ‘book’ for the Oxo Handicap Chase (2.30) but Betdaq punters had already drifted him like a dog on a raft to 12.0 as I write.

I will also look for stats which give me knockouts: example, at Kempton Park this evening, the maiden (5.50) is never won by an older horse.

Unfortunately, there are only two four-year-olds seemingly sure to be turned over by the three-year-olds today and they are both rank outsiders at 37.0 and 50.0, as I write.

A similar knockout strategy is, however, possible in the 7.20, run over 1m: old-timers, who can usually handle races up to 7f, are highly unlikely to win at a mile plus.

Horses aged seven, eight and nine can win sprints, no problem, but sprinters are from a different mould of horse altogether.

In the 7.20, Having A Ball, Queriod, Vitznau and Teen Ager, who are potentially too old for this, remove 48% of a 129% ‘book’ on Betdaq at the time of writing (that overround will reduce as evening-racing exchanges occur this morning).

If, going back to my current hobbyhorse, I now remove trainers out of form, I’m left with just half a dozen horses.

In among them, I spy one that might well be ‘got up’ for this. That old dog Highcliffe was put to the front at Lingfield recently but faded out.

With visors applied, and Hayley Turner in the saddle to do the steering, 15.5 says I have plenty of built-in risk in a Betdaq bet that says that – over this reduced trip – she will hare off in front and not get caught.

I’ve got another 15.5 shot at Southwell (2.10). It could be Dickie Le Davoir’s turn, as a Spring horse: all his wins in 2011 came between March and May and he’s already hit target this year (in January). Now 19lb below his last winning handicap mark, plus a 3lb claim.

I’m trying a double whammy in the 3.40 where forecast-favourite Steady Gaze positively hates going left-handed (0-9); all his success has been on a sounder surface going right-handed (4-7).

The winner is Rory Boy, who skated up on the course in a bumper over the trip only 11 days ago, and could do so again. Nap.

DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 1.3pts win and place DICKIE LE DAVOIR (2.10 Southwell)
LAY to win 10pts STEADY GAZE and 4.5pts win (nap) RORY BOY (3.40 Southwell)
BET 1.3pts win and place HIGHCLIFFE (7.20 Kempton Park)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 3pts win double Owen Glendower (3.00 Huntingdon) and Rory Boy (3.40 Southwell)



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