THEY’RE IN FOR A SQUARE BASHING AT DONCASTER: Daqman expects back-to-back success for Ballydoyle in the £300,000 juveniles race at Doncaster today with Parliament Square.
WILL ‘WILD’ FILLY WIN? I SHOULD COCO! Daqman dares a Daq Multiples double on Parliament Square and, in the Park Hill Stakes, Wild Coco, which he thinks a better price than she should be with fears of the ‘bounce’ factor.
The rain got into the ground too late for me yesterday. It was still Sole Power weather by the time of the big sprint, and then my dark’un for the Kempton nap last night was second at 8-1, after being forced wide.
We all have to expect losing days, but we know from the BETDAQ offers I keep pointing up that we can also expect to finish in front in the longer term if we stick to punter-friendly exchange.
As early as 7 o’clock this morning, there were total probabilities as low as 107% and 104% in the offers for two of today’s races. Those are the ones to get an early position on. Delete the ‘rags’ and you are in a market which will pay more back to you than you pay in, and you can expect your bet to be shorter with the bookies.
1.15 Doncaster It’s beneficial to find the winningmost area in a race; where the winner comes from. For instance, my stats anorak says that nurseries are more and more going to the top of the handicap, and there’s been only one winner of this below 8st 11lb in the last decade.
Favourites are stinkers to follow – also just the one win in the decade – with the SP averaging 9-1 though, if you look back to Monday’s preview, you will see that I talked up the morning market leader, Nargys, as an easy recent winner, with Jamie Spencer taking this nursery twice from just the two rides in the last four seasons.
These are young fillies learning their trade, so it’s madness to go in big; also don’t forget that the going has now changed to good to soft from the original good to firm, though with drying weather forecast for today (here we go again!)
On the opening day yesterday, only one horse drawn below seven reached the frame in the four races of 12 or more runners. That doesn’t seem to help Nargys (in the coffin box, stall 1).
You have to have some way of cutting down a 20-strong field like this one, so we’ll use the stats we’ve found so far: delete the first six stalls and the bottom six runners, though Nargys will be our saver, with ‘Spenny’ riding the race so well in the past (he won from stall 1 last year).
We are left with seven to choose from, if we also shun poor stable form (Dods 0-21, Tate 1-15, Portman 0-6). Five of the seven are with Mark Johnston or Richard Fahey, and you’d have to applaud clever placing by consistent stables, though not too pleased at the betting muddle it causes.
Steer By The Stars is the one certain to enjoy the cut in the ground and, at 14.5, looks solid each way but that multiple assault by Fahey and Johnston muddies the waters.
1.50 Doncaster (Sceptre Stakes) Another big field but a tasty 110% book of offers and a Group 3, so class should out. Also on Monday, I talked up Johnny Murtagh, who’s on the favourite, Sentaril, here and has won the race twice in the decade, including last year with a similar filly.
Ironically, Murtagh was straight off the mark with Sole Power, and another past incumbent as Ballydoyle jockey, Mick Kinane, won the Leger Legends race, as I predicted.
The rain was welcomed by David Elsworth for Bonnie Brae in this renewal of the Sceptre, which has gone to three-year-olds nine times out of 10. So ‘Bonnie’, who was in my first ten To Follow list of the season and won the Bunbury Cup for me, has her work cut out here.
This time the stables we can’t trust are out-of-form McCreery 0-17, Botti 0-15, Chapple-Hyam 0-12, Muir 1-18 and Brittain 1-14. Delete Inetrobil, ‘any price’ this morning, and we are again left with half a dozen or so.
You’d expect the handicapper Perfect Step to struggle here, and front-runner I’m So Glad will be under pressure to stick it out when the four Group performers arrive on the scene.
Sentaril, Gamilati and Regal Realm were all flops last time, so I’m going to take a chance that Richard Fahey has returned Cheveley Park fourth Miss Work Of Art to her best form after a recent run back: 16.5 on BETDAQ says we have risk built in to the offers..
Sentaril, runner-up in the Jersey Stakes at Royal Ascot, and with Murtagh 112 on her, looks the obvious threat.
2.20 Doncaster A colossal prize for a class-2 stakes race, nearly seven times more than the Group race, at £207,000 to the winner. Our share of the lolly could again come from the stats.
They tell us that the winner will already have been placed at class-2 level or run in a Group race, and will have last raced within a month. Perhaps we should again delete the low six stalls (earlier results on the day will confirm or devalue that notion).
Only one winner has come from below 8st 9lb, and trainers Cole (1-8), Tate (1-15) and M Easterby (1-30) are not currently doing well.
Again the BETDAQ market is punter-friendly: if you delete only a handful of the no-hopers, the offers tally up to an underround situation, which helps the value of the market leaders, with punters adamant that this is a four-horse contest.
Hototo has some good form and unbeaten Flyman ‘could be anything’’ but, of the four I can’t take 3.75 The Gold Cheongsam in a field like this. I can, however, take 8.2 the Ballydoyle beast despite top weight.
Parliament Square, third in the Prix Morny and a lover of cut in the ground, is entered up in all the big races, including the Dewhurst and has the 2,000 Guineas as his second-season target.
I can’t seem him making that grade (cheekpieces on a Classic colt!) but this looks ready made at this stage for an animal they are clearly using up in his juvenile season. The stable won the race last year with a colt subsequently placed in two Group-1s but who has lost the plot since.
2.55 Doncaster (Park Hill Stakes) The Lillie Langtry winner has taken this three times in four years. That’s Wild Coco to you today.
But can she again hold off Estimate, runner-up to her at Goodwood, and ‘got up’ by Sir Michael Stoute for a celebration Jubilee win in the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot? If he hadn’t been a knight, he’d have got a knighthood.
Pundits are looking to the bounce factor to stop Wild Coco – Goodwood was her first run for a year – but Sir Hency Cecil’s don’t bounce and she is earmarked for the fillies-and-mares’ race on Frankel’s Champion day.
I think it will be the same one-two in this as at Goodwood, Wild Coco over Estimate, knight after knight.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 3.7pts win NARGYS and 1.4pts win and place STEER BY THE STARS (1.15 Doncaster)
BET 5pts win SENTARIL, and 1.3pts win and place MISS WORK OF ART (1.50 Doncaster)
WIN-30 JACKPOT: 4pts win on each FLYMAN and PARLIAMENT SQUARE (2.20 Doncaster)
BET 10pts win (nap) WILD COCO (2.55 Doncaster)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 1pt win double Parliament Square (2.20 Doncaster) and Wild Coco (2.55 Doncaster)
* Daqman’s bets are staked to win 20 points, so you know the offers he took by dividing 20 by the stake. In jackpot bets, where he aims to win more than 20 points, the same staking rule applies.
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