EASY FOR FRANKEL BUT A BIGGER BATTLE TO BE WON: Daqman applauds the publicity given to today’s Frankel race at York, and also expects to applaud Frankel in the race itself, as the world’s best bids for win number 13 in the International. But top billing for racing is not a battle one horse can win.
HE HAS THE BOOKIES RUNNING SCARED: Daqman attacks the bookies for poor fixed-odds trading over each-way bets and points out the ‘punter friendly’ open market on BETDAQ this morning.
Frankel will lose out today for the second time on The Big Occasion. Not in the race in which he takes part – the International Stakes on the opening day at York – but in his capacity to pull in the crowds.
He increased the turnstiles on his day at Royal Ascot but that was still dwarfed by the attendance later in the week and, though more will go trackside on the Knavesmire today than usual, his audience on course has no chance of matching the attraction of an Ebor being run for the second time on a Saturday.
That’s despite the first-ever star billing for a racehorse in a TV ad which beamed the beauty of his action as a come-on for today’s race.
It was too little too late, but we’ve finally got there. And it must happen again for Camelot, featuring in advance what will surely be the first Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky.
For this is not a fight one horse can win, even if he’s a Frankel, but an ongoing battle for racing’s place in the top flight of sports attendance and coverage.
When you see an Olympic Games brought into the 21st century so successfully as we saw earlier this month, then serious sales strategy and superlative sporting occasion is the only target for racing.
Yorkshire which set the gold standard for Team GB is now, at York this week and Doncaster in September, the focal point for two fabulous thoroughbreds and the publicity they can achieve to bring back a golden age of racing.
We have at last come to the oche. Even if its motivations are not all facing in the same direction, the sum of racing’s parts must be one careful aim at a certain future. In the modern world of fads that come and go, anything that falls short of the bull scores nothing.
2.00 York: On this day of purple prose for Frankel, Act 1, scene 1 of the York week is a comparatively minor drama, a class-2 handicap but it could give the punter vital information about the ground (after watering) and any draw bias on the straight course (was the watering even?).
One bet on each side would be a wise move from this distance (over my cornflakes), maybe from the older horses: those aged three and four are 0-18 in the last nine years, with six-year-olds having the best record.
Another strategy would be to take horses with little mileage on the clock this season: Rex Imperator, Captain Dunne, Zero Money, Ponty Acclaim, Master Manannan, Ancient Cross, Chunky Diamond, Kaldoun Kingdom, Burning Thread and The Thrill is Gone should be fresher than most.
These sprints are a quick way to the poorhouse so I’ll just have a bit each way on Zero Money (16.0), who would win this on his penultimate run (the Shergar Cup form of musical jockeys can often be ignored).
2.30 York (Acomb Stakes): Is Dundonnell an embryonic Frankel? He went 12 lengths clear at Lingfield, breaking the track record in the process, and a colt he’s already finished in front of, Afonso De Sousa, won by nine lengths at Leopardstown.
But, as I warned in my horses-to-follow list the other day, Ebn Arab also has an outstanding chance the way he stormed five lengths clear of Related over today’s CD in July. What a race!
3.05 York (Great Voltigeur Stakes): I said in yesterday’s preview that a Group-2 penalty is costly in this race: the last nine to carry it have all lost, including Irish Derby runner-up Midas Touch and such class horses as Mastery and Father Time.
And Thomas Chippendale’s is a classic case, where his 3lb extra puts him at a disadvantage after his level-weights half-length and neck King Edward V11 defeat of Noble Mission and Thought Worthy, whom he now meets on the revised terms.
Derby form is the key to this, and Main Sequence, runner-up to Camelot at Epsom, and unlucky at Longchamp in the Grand Prix, is on a mission here and a worthy favourite.
3.40 York (International): Frankel faces his biggest field, bar the Queen Anne, in the last 16 months because of the extra distance, though really the same stables are taking him on, Godolphin (runners-up to him at Goodwood), and Ballydoyle (second five times with Excelebration).
Big money isn’t running scared of adventure on this memorable day as Frankel bids for a 13-win run which has had no element of luck about it. But the bookies are terrified.
Their fear is the each-way backer and, even if you picked the best offers from the nine layers lined up in Pricewise in the Racing Post this morning, you could manage a best-price percentage of only 118, compared with the fabulous 102% list I’m looking at on BETDAQ, as I write.
Compare Betdaq’s punter-friendly market at time of writing: St Nicholas Abbey 11.5 but 5-1 and 11-2 with bookmakers; Farrh 47.0 but generally 10-1 and 12-1; Twice Over 62.0 as against 14-1 to 20-1 with the bookies; Planteur and Sri Putra at least twice some fixed odds offered.
St Nicholas Abbey has run over 10 furlongs only once in 17 months; that was when he allowed his pacemaker, Windsor Palace to steal a race at The Curragh.
Jockey Joseph O’Brien was blamed but they hardly did a warm-up gallop, the race being run nearly 15 seconds worse than course-average time.
‘St Nick’ shouldn’t lack for pace today with Frankel’s own infantry leading the charge while both Frankel and the Ballydoyle big gun are being wound up into attack mode.
Farrh should also do better over this trip than his six-lengths defeat by Frankel in the Sussex and Planteur could bounce back to his 2011 form; the rest are pacemakers or older horses, though Twice Over did beat a depleted field for this last season.
In the hope that they have watered sufficiently for him, I shall take 47.0 Farhh win and place, having the place part more than twice over!
4.15 York: Older horses (over five) don’t win this and they look well exposed with the possible exception of Nicky Henderson’s Cape Express, who’s had only 12 races, which includes his hurdles career of three wins out of four.
Cape Express, favourite in the marathon Goodwood Stakes, is now 10lb better off with the third horse that day, Never Can Tell, including Darren Egan’s allowance, and will be better suited to the shorter trip here.
Very Good Day beat Reem Star over CD but neither has been able to step up a grade from class 3 to score in today’s class 2. Neither has Herostatus, seventh home that day and a subsequent CD winner over Eagle Rock and Itlaaq, to which the same class distinction applies.
On the other hand, Western Prize just missed out at class-2 level, the moral winner, giving Montaser lumps of weight at Ascot.
We just don’t know how Olympiad will perform on a sound surface.an translate his hurdles form to this discipline.
4.50 York: Three-year-olds haven’t had a look-in since the early part of the century (the score since is 4yo 6, 5yo 2) and all three – Hajras, Sir John Hawkwood and Van Der Art – have wide draws.
But the form for this seems to hinge on a similar race at Goodwood on the last day of July when half a dozen of today’s field were outpointed by the runner-up, Las Verglas Star.
But he in turn had been beaten by a three-year-old in his previous race. The winner that day was Ahzeemah, a stablemate of Start Right, who had been hampered at Goodwood but got within a head (third) of Las Verglas Star.
That’s my theory for backing Start Right at 12.5 on BETDAQ this morning and the best-offered among the three-year-olds, Hajras. But I need a saver on Sir John Hawkwood.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 1.3pts win and place ZERO MONEY (2.00 York)
BET 10pts win (nap) MAIN SEQUENCE (3.05 York)
BET 0.4pts win and 1.6pts place FARHH (3.40 York)
BET 2pts win CAPE EXPRESS, with 1pt win (stakes saver) WESTERN PRIZE (4.15 York)
BET 2.5pts win HAJRAS, 1.7pts win START RIGHT and 1.4pts win (stakes saver) SIR JOHN HAWKWOOD (4.50 York)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 2 x 3pts win treble Afonso De Sousa and Ebn Arab (2.30 York) with Main Sequence (3.05 York) and Frankel (3.40 York)
HORSES TO FOLLOW: EBN ARAB (2.30 York)
* Daqman’s selections are backed to win 20 points so, if you divide 20 by his stake, you know the Betdaq offer taken at the time of writing.
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