DAQMAN WANTS TWO NATIONAL WINNERS IN A WEEK: Daqman, currently on 18 winning jackpot bets in his sequence, brings them back on Saturday, with just a week to go to the Grand National. Don’t miss his Aintree countdown starting on Sunday, with time out on Monday for the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse. Can he land a double of Nationals?
THE LIVERPOOL ELEVEN: Daqman is convinced that the Aintree winner will come from only 11 horses from the 79 officially still in the race. Today he reminds you of the stats that could reveal the winner and lists the attributes of the BETDAQ-value eleven.
FIVE LAYS IN A ROW: Daqman landed another lay on Wednesday, taking him to five in a row, starting with Lonesome Boatman, the last to be recorded in his Library. Wednesday’s was Douze Points (2nd 8-13 favourite)
Jason and the juggernauts. Jason Maguire wants the last say in next week’s Grand National after he started a war of words with his whip-crack-away win on Ballabriggs a year ago.
National horses are the juggernauts of racing and need a round of super stamina and intense concentration to negotiate the 30 fences. But then there’s still the biggest obstacle to go. The interminable run-in.
Ballabriggs had led from the water in 2011 and Jason was mindful of how many horses have lost their gears on that lonely drive to the line. Next Saturday he will want to lay the ghost that has haunted him through the weeks of the whip controversy that led to ludicrous new rules, then at last subsided in some sense of sanity.
Maguire will want this 2011-12 finale to stamp this season his own and wipe away the whips palava. He has stepped up his strike-rate of 19% of the two previous season’s to a champion’s-level 24%.
And this has raised his winners total in that time from 108 and then 95 to a current 138, only six behind Richard Johnson before Thursday racing, so we’d now have a massive fight on our hands for this term’s title.. if it wasn’t for that stubborn man-dynamo McCoy whose genius has him more than 50 clear of the Johnson-Maguire set-to and just short of his 200 for the season.
Punters should note that Maguire wins one battle, the one perhaps most important to them: alone of the top 16, he is showing a level-stakes profit.
To the fabled four – McCoy, Johnson, Geraghty, Walsh – we now have to add Maguire, not least because in the trainers’ list there’s a new man in second place.
Though Henderson and Nicholls are a furlong in front on prizemoney won, Donald McCain could actually win the trainers’ title numerically, if it were judged on winners. It was Henderson 149, McCain 142, with Nicholls trailing on 119 before Thursday racing.
McCain (Ballabriggs) and Henderson (Shakalakaboomboom) figure in my Grand National 11 but Nicholls’ Neptune Collonges is only about 16th in my reckoning.
The stats say you are looking for the following: weight carried last three years 11st to 11st 5lb; rating 148 to 153; age, no older than 10. Going forecast: good, good to soft in places.
In this list the winning going is given after the trainer’s name with, at the end of the line, the longest winning distance and number of times the horse has fallen:
3P0311 SYNCHRONISED 9-11-10 J J O’Neill (G2, S4, H3) (4m 2f) rated 161 Fell 0
1121-4 BALLABRIGGS 11-11-9 D McCain (G4, S3) (4m 4f) rated 160 Fell 1
2F0011 CALGARY BAY 9-11-6 Ms H Knight (G1, GS3) (3m) rated 157 Fell 1
013023 PLANET OF SOUND 10-11-5 P Hobbs (G1, GS3, S1) (3m 1f) rated 156 Fell 1
321-02 JUNIOR 9-11-2 D Pipe (G3, GS, S) (3m 2f) rated 153 Fell 0
0U3032 CHICAGO GREY 9-10-13 G Elliott (GF, G3, Y, SH, H) (4m), rated 150 Fell 1
111111 SEABASS 9-10-12 T M Walsh (Y, S, H3) (3m) rated 149 Fell 1
001122 SHAKALAKABOOMBOOM 8-10-12 N. Henderson (G2, GS, Y) (3m 2f) rated 149 Fell 0
1PB-P1 WEST END ROCKER 10-10-12 A. King (G2, S, H2) (3m 5f) rated 149 Fell 0
F2P133 CAPPA BLEU 10-10-10 Evan Williams (GS2) (3m 3f) rated 147 Fell 1
F30P01 SUNNYHILLBOY 9-10-5 J J O’Neill (G2, S) (3m 2f) rated 142 Fell 1
BETDAQ VALUE: Check out the betting between the Oddschecker bookies’ list and your BETDAQ ante-post offers.
Thursday’s comparisons were: 12.5 Synchronised (worst and best with bookmakers 6-1 and 10-1), 12.5 Junior (8-1 and 10-1), 15.5 Chicago Grey (12-1 and 14-1), 16.0 Seabass (14-1 and 16-1), 16.5 Ballabriggs (11-1 and 14-1), 17.0 Cappa Bleu (11-1 and 14-1), 18.0 West End Rocker (12-1 and 16-1), 20.0 Sunnyhillboy (12-1 and 16-1), 25.0 Shakalakaboomboom (16-1 and 20-1), 31.0 Planet Of Sound (20-1 and 33-1), 33.0 Calgary Bay (20-1 and 25-1).
THURSDAY: A disappointing card as expected at Wincanton, where firm ground had rain on top, making for a tricky surface but Ludlow offered intriguing class-3 and class-4 contests.
Paul Nicholls gave Harry Derham the home rides at Winkers and set Daryl Jacob the task of giving Domtaline (2.50) his first chasing experience at Ludlow.
I took the BETDAQ 4.5 offers about Nicholls and Jacob with Italian Master (3.20), who comes out about the same as Talkonthestreet on Point-to-point form and, bred for the step up to 3m, was expected to leave his December debut form behind after treatment for a breathing problem, tongue-tied as an added precaution.
The Nicholls’ Cheltenham Foxhunter flop Just Amazing was at big BETDAQ offers (7.0) to return to form in the 3.50 Oakly Park Challenge Cup, with paper-favourite Cootehill an early drifter, presumably because of the Team Twiston-Davies’ poor current form.
With success only on the soft, and just the one run in UK, Marescou didn’t appeal to me as new favourite and Politeo, also without a win outside his country of origin, had proved very hard to win with.
On the flat turf-Flat at Folkestone, I wanted to lay Cotton Trader (4.40), an established bridesmaid after seven consecutive places, and back Estedaama, who had finished strongly for Paul Hanagan at Lingfield, so he was down to the south coast for one ride, to renew their partnership.
The question of the day: whether a Mafki (won the 2010 2,000 Guineas) would appear in the big trials at ‘Maisons’. Watch this space.
DAQMAN’S THURSDAY BETS
BET 5.7pts win ITALIAN MASTER (3.20 Ludlow)
BET 3.3pts win JUST AMAZING (3.50 Ludlow)
LAY to win 10pts COTTON TRADER and BET 8.5pts win ESTEDAAMA (4.40 Folkestone)
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