16-1 CHAMPION ALREADY: NOW DAQMAN HAS 20-1 AND 16-1 ANTE-POST: Can Daqman do it again? Following his ante-post Champion Hurdle coup with 17.0 Rock On Ruby, Daqman has a 21.0 Betdaq bet for the Ryanair today, Captain Chris, only 10-1 in a place in the morning market, and 17.0 Thousand Stars, as low as 8-1 for the World Hurdle.
I got one thing right yesterday. The winning stables from day one – Henderson, McCain – went on winning and the losers, King and Pipe in particular, went on losing. Soft and heavy ground Irish form is simply not translating into the fast terrain of Cheltenham 2012.
1.30 Cheltenham (Jewson Novices’ Chase): With Ireland’s Sir Des Champs the danger in the market, but officially 12lb inferior, does this mean that McCain’s Peddlers Cross (pictured) is a good thing for the old Golden Miller Chase?
The stats demand a seven-year-old with Graded-race experience off a rating as good or better than last year’s (Noble Prince 146), which gives you only Champion Court, For Non Stop, Peddlers Cross, and Zaynar, a Triumph winner and Champion Hurdle third having his first run for David Pipe.
But you can’t leave out Solix with Nicky Henderson raising the game of virtually every Seven Barrows runner so far this week.
In fact, Solix is a key: he is ‘the same horse’ as Champion Court on New Year’s Day form at Cheltenham, clear of Zaynar on Champion Court’s November run there but the equal of Cristal Bonus on a line through Duke Of Lucca.
Both Al Ferof and Cue Card have let down For Non Stop, and therefore Michael Flips, so – with only a cigarette paper between Cristal Bonus, Solix and Champion Court – you are left with that clash between Peddlers Cross and Sir Des Champs, unless three horses are all champions, which is highly unlikely.
At Kempton over 2m, Peddlers Cross was made to look pedestrian by Sprinter Sacre but then so would Pegasus and the Eurostar to Paris! As a 2m 4f big winner over hurdles, today’s trip has a big cross in the box for Peddlers, who has won the Neptune and run second in a Champion Hurdle.
Willie Mullins got off the mark in the bumper yesterday and just look at Sir Des Champs’ form! At Cheltenham last March, he beats yesterday’s Coral Cup winner, Son of Flicka, and at Limerick in December, he hammers yesterday’s NH Chase third, Four Commanders.
He’s won at Cheltenham; he’s won on the ground; and he’s unbeaten. The 4.8 Peddlers and 5.1 Sir Des Champs I see before me means that I can dutch.
2.05 Cheltenham (Pertemps Final): Will the first of two David Pipe paper favourites today, Our Father, leave this race behind at Ascot? His easy win there cost him a 19lb rise, and – with hat-trick seeking, Buena Vista, likely to take them on at a rattle – only one horse in eight years has gone this pace and carried more than 10st 9lb.
A better bet at the top of the handicap must surely be 33.0 Betdaq offer Restless Harry, who steps out of the shadow of Big Buck’s. Similarly, Sonofvic – unbeaten over hurdles – swerves renewed encounters with Grands Crus, Champion Court and Solix over fences.
Rick also drops from Graded contests, in which he’s taken on Mourad, Mikael D’Haguenet and Voler La Vedette but he was seen off by Pineau De Re on good ground in the autumn.
There’s not much between Pineau De Re (21.0 on the Daq this morning) and Sergeant Guib’s, the mount of Ruby Walsh, but we know that Pineau acts on today’s surface.
Interesting jockey booking is Tony McCoy for Catch Me (but prefers soft ground), leaving jockey-of-the-moment Barry Geraghty on Thehillofuisneach. Catch Me hasn’t won a hurdle race for four years but has plummeted 29lb in the handicap.
Thehillofuisneach (16.5 as I write) got stuck in the mud at Haydock but had looked a big prospect under McCoy then Paddy Brennan on better ground.
Similarly Houblon Des Obeaux scored over CD in January on today’s kind of terrain before the mud cloyed his chances at the same Haydock meeting. Snag is five-year-olds are 0-28.
Nicely primed for this is CD-winner Sir Kezbaah, with Jeremy Scott and Nick Scholfield having been in excellent form in the run-up to the Festival.
2.40 Cheltenham (Ryanair Chase): Only four fit the stats (rated 155-166 and already a winner at at Cheltenham): Captain Chris, Great Endeavour, Noble Prince and Poquelin.
Somersby has never liked the course but Albertas Run has won the RSA and this Ryanair twice; Forpadydeplasterer (needs rain) the Arkle; Great Endeavour the Byrne Plate and Noble Prince the Jewson.
And we haven’t even mentioned the favourite yet: bound to be a Henderson; yes it is, Riverside Theatre, third in 2011.
This is a massive puzzle, with the first four last year racing again, and only five points between six horses in the Daq market at the time of writing. In terms of competitiveness, a better race than tomorrow’s Gold Cup.
In my ante-post previews, I guessed that last year’s Arkle winner and King George third, Captain Chris, might be switched to this and took 21.0 (he’s 12.0 this morning, as I write).
‘Chris’ has to bounce back but is a Spring horse, and the stable has already had a winner at the Festival this week with Balthazar King.
3.20 Cheltenham (World Hurdle): I put Thousand Stars in my horses-to-follow list in November, as the one most likely to topple Big Buck’s from his perch.
That was an unfashionable pick at a time when he was being talked about for the Champion Hurdle, and I wasn’t brave enough to make it a jackpot bet.
In fact, I gave Thousand Stars a mention as ‘the one most likely to’ when he won the big 3m hurdle at Auteuil on the soft in June last year, having already shown at Cheltenham that he had the pace to win the County Hurdle (2010) on good ground. I thought that was a tremendous combination.
I can’t fault Big Buck’s, and I will be the first to salute his fourth World Hurdle and 16th successive win, if indeed he matches Sir Ken’s fabulous record. Just two stars in a thousand.
4.00 Cheltenham (Byrne Group Plate): Another handicap for lightweights: eight winners in the decade carried 10st 9lb or less, six from within the ratings parameter 133-139.
Divers (8.8 this morning), who won at the Festival last year, has Tony McCoy booked, and Niceonefrankie (11.0) has a featherweight for a stable that knows how to place them.
4.40 Cheltenham (Kim Muir Handicap): Horses aged eight and nine are six out of seven, with official ratings of 125 to 140.
Five winners in the last decade had already been placed at the Festival, which gives you Sunnyhillboy, Faasel, Becauseicouldntsee and Be There In Five.
Brackloon High (14.5) is ridden by jockey who has already won this race, and may have most to fear from Becauseicouldntsee (13.5) and Sunnyhillboy (8.4).
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 5.4pts win (nap) PEDDLERS CROSS and 4.7pts win SIR DES CHAMPS (1.30 Cheltenham), already ante-post 2.5pts win Invictus (non-runner).
WIN-30 JACKPOT: 1.9pts win THEHILLOFUISNEACH 1.5pts win PINEAU DE RE and 1pt win and place on each SIR KEZBAAH and RESTLESS HARRY (2.05 Cheltenham)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: 1.5pts win CAPTAIN CHRIS, already ante-post at 21.0 (2.40 Cheltenham)
BET 1pt win, already ante-post at 17.0, THOUSAND STARS (3.20 Cheltenham)
BET 2.5pts win DIVERS and 2pts win NICEONEFRANKIE (4.00 Cheltenham)
BET 2.7pts win SUNNYHILLBOY, 1.4pts win BRACKLOON HIGH and 1.6pts win BECAUSEICOULDNTSEE (4.40 Cheltenham)
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