‘MAJOR’ BOOST AS MOST IMPROVED MISSES THE CRAVEN: With the hugely hyped 2,000 Guineas hope, Most Improved, out of the today’s Craven Stakes (‘slightly lame’), Daqman goes for Trumpet Major and Eastern Sun.
TWO OUT OF THREE IN BETDAQ RACES: Daqman had two winners from three bets on the Betdaq-sponsored races at Kempton Park last night – (Old Hundred WON 10-3) and Russian Bullet (WON 13-8) – and finds reasons why form and the market are being turned over on the Rowley Mile.
Would the usual suspects step forward please. After double-figure odds floored punters at the opening Flat-turf meeting at Doncaster, they were reeling again yesterday, as Newmarket fared little better.
It was 14-1 from 25-1 in the first and 28-1 from 20-1 in the Nell Gwyn, which looked less like a Classic trial more a moderate Listed, won as it was by 10-times-raced (one maiden win at Leicester) Esentepe.
That sort of result is unheard of in the annals of the race and the form has to be suspect, to put it mildly. If Esentepe is a Guineas or Oaks winner, then it’s the worst year for fillies since Nell herself was selling her oranges.
But the biggest shock for punters came in the previous race, the Free Handicap: though I warned in my column that none of Sir Michael Stoute’s runners this season had managed to get within six lengths of a winner, Zumbi was backed off the boards (10-11 SP).
That could only have been ‘insider information,’ which means that Zumbi is a morning glory, the Stoute team is behind, or Sir Michael’s sleek throughbred swans are mere cackling geese. Or all three!
The old adages against two-year-old form, ‘never back a three-year-old until after the Derby’ – because ‘this year is this year and last year was last ‘ – have never been so telling.
But there are other reasons for strange results that regularly dog us on the English-racing scene: the draw and the going.
The so-called good ground wasn’t ‘good’ at all; it produced times which were slow in all seven races by up to 8.52secs. That’s slow even by the ‘pogo-stick’ measure of 8.3 accorded the returns in the Racing Post today.
Why? Well, the wind ‘in relation to the straight’ was ‘fairly strong against’, the trade paper reports at the top of those returns. Yes, it’s all in the small print.
Final suspect for yesterday’s baffling results: the draw. Winners by stall on the straight course yesterday were from those numbered 5, 1, 3, 3, 2, 2.
What then to make of today’s Craven without the gambled-on Guineas hope, Most Improved (withdrawn ‘lame’) and the market unsteady on another day of wind, with added rain?
1.50 Newmarket: Hannon, Channon and Hills (though officially Barry not Charles) have shared six of the last nine runnings of this race, and all are represented.
Hannon (he trained Esentepe) and Hills were both among the winners yesterday. Hannon has the best of the draw, with Tassel in 2.
2.20 Newmarket (Wood Ditton Stakes): This is the first of five more three-year-old races, in which a bet would be in line with government policy: i.e. another opportunity to throw money into the wind.
And we know right from the start that things ain’t what they used to be. Until recently, this race has been packed with future winners but last year’s first three failed to score during the rest of season.
A total of six minor wins came later on from among the 13 starters but the previous year only four of the field scored in that season, also in maidens or minor events.
Still you never know what’s lurking, even among the dross, at this time of year. The second horse home in 2009 was a certain Harbinger, trained by Stoute. Aptly named or what!
Harbinger won six of his subsequent eight races, five of them at Group level, culminating in the King George the following year.
This afternoon’s biggest field for some time suggests there might well be something lurking: maybe again, it will be Stoute but it won’t be Mawhub, who’s already gelded, and his two others, Mawasem and Tenure, are ignored this morning at 16.0 and 16.5.
But the market leaders, Mukhadram, Gold Edition and Mariners Cross, all have double-figure stalls, and three of the six best drawn have also been gelded, as though they have problems.
That leaves Mawasem in 1 (Stoute’s, rejected by Moore and Hanagan), Roserrow in 3 (Balding’s horses usually need a run) and the Irish Oaks entry, Soho Susie (in 4), a massive 52.0 at the time of writing.
3.00 Newmarket (Tattersalls Millions Trophy): Just three runnings and all surprise winners (25-1, 9-1 and 8-1), even though they came from top yards (Bell, Hannon, Gosden).
Favourites have failed to reach the frame every year so far, though they, too, were from leading stables (O’Brien, Stoute, Saeed Bin Suroor), and one of them – O’Brien’s – went on to run second in two Guineas.
Mickdaam is almost certain to start favourite, as the UAE Derby fourth (Entifaadha behind), pressed by a Guineas horse of Hannon’s, Coupe De Ville, who looks thoroughly exposed but, as I’ve said, that didn’t stop the same stable’s Esentepe yesterday.
I shall have a bit win and place on David Wachman’s raider, Dante and Derby entry, Amira’s Prince, at 7.6 on BETDAQ. We know he’s a winner this year and we know the form has been boosted by the runner-up.
3.35 Newmarket (Abernant Stakes): A welcome respite from the untrustworthy second-season animals. The clues are that the last five winners had all raced in Group events.
That selects High Standing, Genki, Tiddliwinks and Jimmy Styles, all of whom have the experience for this (six of the last seven winners were aged between five and eight).
However, none of those four are in the low-five stalls, but another Group performer, Mayson (8.4 on BETDAQ), is in stall 3, has won with cut in the ground and trainer Richard Fahey, who had a double at Beverley yesterday, knows the score with Jimmy Styles and Sirius Prospect.
Normal improvement and 4lb better terms should make up November’s neck defeat by Sirius Prospect, and he has the draw to help him rail away from ‘Jimmy’, who beat him two lengths at Doncaster but is here in stall 11, not known for holding his form and with only one win in his last 25 starts.
Genki, first time out winner of this last season, must be on the premises again and will have been trained for the race.
4.10 Newmarket (Craven Stakes); Punters rushed to support subsequent winners of this after Haafhd followed up his Craven victory (2004) in the 2,000 Guineas. Foolish error.
From the next seven runnings, Craven winners Adagio, Delegator, Elusive Pimpernel, Killybegs and Native Khan all failed to win another race outright that season (one of them dead-heated at odds on).
Once again, like the Harbinger case in the Wood Ditton, something progressive could be lurking in the also-rans: John Gosden’s Raven’s Pass, for instance, was beaten a short-head in this in 2008 but had a cracking season culminating in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
As in the Wood Ditton, the market leaders – Trumpet Major (official rating 114), Crius (113) and Mighty Ambition – are all drawn in double figures.
Best of the low drawn is the Gosden runner, Eastern Sun, who has already won a race on AW this month, and, though officially only on 103, finished three lengths in front of Trumpet Major last term, so that he could be anywhere between 103 and 120. He certainly shouldn’t be the 11.0 he is on BETDAQ as I write.
Trumpet Major represents the Most Improved form: less than a length separated them when they were fourth and sixth in the Dewhurst, and Trumpet Major was even expected to reverse the placings with Most Improved if he had run, since the ‘The Major’ had had an interrupted preparation for the Dewhurst.
Mighty Ambition, with a stayers’ pedigree – and a really interesting one at that, by Street Cry out of a Sadler’s Wells mare – won’t be inconvenienced by his high draw and has that ‘could be anything’ look. But said to need the run.
4.45 Newmarket (Earl of Sefton Stakes): Horses aged four and five are seven in a row here, as you might expect in a Group 3, but the seven-year-old Twice Over, who won the Craven in 2008, is 9lb clear in the ratings: the Henry Cecil entire has won five of his seven starts at Newmarket and is little better than even money this morning.
Second favourite, at a respectful distance (7.4 on BETDAQ), is Tazahum and, of course, I can’t recommend a Stoute runner at this time (I was ‘told’ yesterday that Russelliana should be treated differently from the rest of his yard but she finished 9th in the Nell Gwyn).
So it is that we are talking 8.0 bar the favourite this morning, which is the offer about another entire, Ransom Note, as I write.
Ransom Note made all over CD in September (Tazahum fourth) and won this race first time out last year: he will no doubt have been ‘got up’ to win it again, so is value despite his Group-2 penalty.
Apart from Twice Over, he is entitled to be giving weight to the field, since they are Group 3 at best. And we can always save stakes on Twice Over, who should give a good account, though he has been held up in his work.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET: 0.3pts win and place SOHO SUSIE (2.20 Newmarket)
BET: 3pts win AMIRA’S PRINCE (NAP) (3.00 Newmarket)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: 11pts win GENKI, 4pts win MAYSON, and (3.35 Newmarket)
BET 5.4pts win TRUMPET MAJOR AND 2pts win EASTERN SUN (4.10 Newmarket)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: 4.2pts win RANSOM NOTE and 4pts win (stakes saver) TWICE OVER (4.45 Newmarket)
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