‘SALUT’ THE NAP IN DAQMAN DOUBLE: Daqman explores the trainer stats and finds a nailed-on double at Fontwell this afternoon, led by his nap, Salut Honore.
Little fish are sweet. That particularly applies when your keep net is relatively empty, and you are used to making the big catches.
Both Alan King and Nigel Twiston-Davies are in a slump, and have been costly for their fans to follow this season, well down on peak performance.
‘Twiston’ has win prizemoney this term of £275,000, little more than a third of his 2010-11 total and only a quarter of the million-plus 2009-10 season.
You can see at Fontwell today why he is 60% down on winners compared with last season, with 60 to 97. Like the Hello Buds of this world – still in training with him at the age of 14 – Nudge And Nurdle is ‘an old man’ now.
‘Nudge’ hasn’t won anything since November, 2009, but has slid down the handicap some 17lb; even so it’s difficult to fancy him after defeats totaling 104 lengths in his last two races.
He’s nearly twice the age of Salut Honore (3.10 Fontwell) who, despite winning two of his last three chases, is still only as high in the handicap as his hurdles mark.
Double Chocolate got an easy lead in a slow-run race over CD in November but hasn’t got away with it again and is unlikely to here, with El Diego and Evella also front-runners.
River d’Or has never won in UK, and not scored in three years almost, while Near The Water has failed to complete in three of his last four starts.
Verdict: Dropped back in trip, El Diego may last longer out in front, but has no jumps win in 15 starts and, unless he has an off day, Salut Honore, with Richard Johnson up, should account for a field with modest recent form.
The ‘Twiston’ little fish, Nudge And Nurdle, will have to bounce back but he likes the ground and one of his last two wins was here.
Alan King is on a steadier path, the pattern as before, with 73 winners after 76 and 84 in the previous two seasons. But that’s not a patch on two great seasons from 2007-9 with 128 and 136 winners consecutively, and currently with only half the prizemoney won then.
I feel that his is a case not so much of battling on with older horses but with the youngsters not quite fulfilling his ambitions. The novices Medinas (2.10) and Habbie Simpson (2.40) won’t make me eat my words, since they have to win only modest heats today.
But Medinas may still have a future: he was beaten twice at short prices when clearly fancied by the yard to do well but was found to have ulcers: cured of that, he stormed home at Hereford by 10 lengths and 25.
Heavenstown won over CD under the cosh in poor time but Kuilsriver was a good second to a hat-trick winner before failing in Graded company, and Mike Towey never came off the bridle at on a sound surface at Ffo Las, though that was almost 11 months ago and the Peter Bowen yard hasn’t had a winner for 65 days.
King could still just about make the million-pound mark but compare that with the Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls power struggle for the trainers’ title, which has seen them build up a combined haul of £4.5m from 265 winners between them and several big races to come – not least the Aintree Festival – in this final month of the season.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 8.6pts win (nap) SALUT HONORE (3.10 Fontwell)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 5pts win double MEDINAS (2.10 Fontwell) and SALUT HONORE (3.10 Fontwell)
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