ROYAL NAP ON BETDAQ KEMPTON CARD: Daqman checks out his golden rules but finds that Kempton punters are already avoiding the obvious. Instead they’re plunging on his nap, Richard Hannon’s only runner, owned by The Queen.
Tappanapa should have been the nap. But it was a long shot, very short at 9-4 yesterday, for this reason: it was the first favourite in two whole days of AW racing at Kempton Park to get his head in front at the line. Yes, layers will cherish the score: only one winning favourite in 13.
I’ve been banging on about them for years now but they have to be repeated again and again: I’m talking about my golden rules for low-level betting that help explain the favourites flop.
Golden Rule 1: Horses below C level – now called level 3 – simply don’t keep their form well enough or long enough for total faith; don’t expect the obvious. More precisely..
Golden Rule 2: Horses below level 3 are rarely able to put back-to-back wins together. Those finishing second or third after a sequence of fairly good results are also suspect.
Instead, you want those just reaching form or which have bided their time and got their turn on the day when others have already had their day: ‘winners by default.’
Result of punter faith in last-time-out winners? False favourites. Would it still surprise you to know that four of the five losing favourites on Kempton AW yesterday were winners last time out.
2.40 Haydock: First the jumps, and the stats say that the bottom four or five in this class-3 handicap have won the race every season in the five years since its inception.
Little Hercules ran well at Haydock, 6lb higher, over 2m in November but then ‘ missed one out’, doing badly stepped up to today’s trip at Ayr; he was taking on top company on his latest start (Simonsig won it) but finished remote.
Sir Tantallus Hawk is well in here with Little Hercules, has won over the trip and can be forgiven his latest effort at Market Rasen, which goes the wrong way round for him. All seven wins have come in February-March.
Jukebox Melody has a mind of his own but has run better than most over a trip like today’s and maybe the blinkers will concentrate his effort.
In mixing hurdles and fences, Jetnovas has yet to reproduce last year’s form; Shadows Lengthen is an in-and-out performer; and I’m taken quickly to the top half of the handicap looking for some class.
Stopped Out, back from chasing, is 10lb higher than his last hurdles win; Trustan Times, too, reverts to hurdles but hasn’t won since his novice days.
I’m left with the front-runners, Timesawastin (holds Radmores Revenge on Bangor form) and Star In Flight, the two favourites, as I write.
Timesawastin was described by jockey Paul Moloney as ‘unsteerable’ a couple of starts back and Star In Flight looked progressive stepped up to this kind of trip. He could continue the McCain run, with Sir Tantallus Hawk (17.0 this morning) best of those bottomweights.
3.50 Haydock: There’s been no winner in this over the age of six. The first-time-blinkered Rawaaj and Kealigolane are likely to take them along, and that will be too much pace for Omaruru and Tom O’Tara on their return from a year off.
Quarton may be better than the bare form but I shall rely on Tony McCoy to sit and wait on the leaders and deliver Taaresh.
5.20 Kempton (Win Big With Betdaq Multiples Median Auction Maiden Stakes) So will this card cement the Kempton layers love affair with favourites? Or – sod’s law because I’ve been talking about them in my intro – will last-time winners finally have a run of hits?
It doesn’t apply to this maiden, for which Viola Da Gamba is favourite after 213 days off and wearing a hood so she thinks she’s still on holiday.
I’m well put off until I see her entries: she’s in all three of the Tattersalls Millions series of sales races at Newmarket in the Spring.
I can’t back her but William Knight surely knows something we don’t know. I wouldn’t dismiss the Clive Brttain beast, Bashama.
It’s Winter Derby week and that’s when Clive – now 77 – usually does his groundhog trick and reappears like a sprightly woodchuck would, with that winners’ enclosure dance, a rite of Spring which has caught us out many a time at a big price.
Clive began in racing as an apprentice the year Nimbus won the Derby; food was still rationed after the war; Lester Piggott had just ridden his first winner; and the first automatic street lights were on trial in America. Let’s dance, Clive.
5.55 Kempton (Back or Lay At Betdaq.com Handicap) Ah! A last-time-out winner: Burnhope. And he’s paper favourite, too (rubs hands).
But Burnhope has taken a right-royal bashing already this morning; he’s been overthrown by The Queen’s Traveller’s Tales, Ryan Moore up. I’ll go with the flow here on Richard Hannon’s only runner of the day
6.25 Kempton (Betdaq Mobile Apps Median Auction maiden Stakes): I wouldn’t bet in this race with buttons but Billy Buttons is from a yard that’s had five of its last seven runners placed.
6.55 Kempton (Betdaq Mobile Apps Handicap) Spartan Spirit – gelded since last run – should have his mind on the job now, and everything else is on the drift this morning.
Of last-time winners, Garstang and Mafi (8.25) are very easy to back in the face of a move for Legal Legacy, despite his wide draw: Hayley Turner booked.
Odd Ball and Putin have flip-flopped in the last (8.55), with Odd Ball now favourite. Two different horses you wouldn’t wish to meet: Odd Ball is a slow starter; Putin a front-runner. But, as I say, I wouldn’t wish to meet them. Both were winners last time out.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 8.3pts win STAR IN FLIGHT and 1.25pts win SIR TANTALLUS HAWK (2.40 Haydock)
BET 6.6pts win TAARESH (3.50 Haydock)
BET 2.2pts win BASHAMA and 1.4pts win (stakes saver) VIOLA DE GAMBA (5.20 Kempton)
BET 6.4pts win (nap) TRAVELLER’S TALES (5.55 Kempton)
BET 3.4pts win LEGAL LEGACY (8.25 Kempton)
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