NAPS HAT-TRICK BY SIX LENGTHS: Pass the champagne! Another naps hat-trick for Daqman was landed by Tioga Pass (WON 11-4), six lengths winner at Goodwood yesterday. Our man’s three hits in a row are:
WON 13-8 Lawman’s Thunder
WON 5-4 Russian Realm
WON 11-4 Tioga Pass
IN CLASSIC FORM FOR THE GUINEAS: Daqman also headlined ‘Observational to pass Derby test’: Observational (WON 2-1) did just that to chalk up 32 points profit on the day. Now our man is looking for a Guineas double today and tomorrow at The Curragh.
LATEST SCORE: DAQMAN 71, PRICEWISE 21: Today’s races in the Daqman v Pricewise challenge are the 3.20 at The Curragh and 3.45 Haydock. Daqman leads 32-9 on the Flat and 71-21 overall since the challenge started.
THE ONE YOU MUSTA BACK IN THE CLASSIC!
1.45 The Curragh A bogey race for Ballydoyle! Form figures of 4022 don’t inspire support for I Am Beautiful and As Good As Gold, epithets which are rarely compatible.
As well as having names that start the day with a smile, David Wachman’s pair, Gussy Goose and Sexy Legs, cost more than the rest put together. Watch the BETDAQ market.
1.50 Goodwood You are looking for horses dropped from Group level or previously Listed placed. I don’t fancy Starboard and Auction on that score.
Saeed Bin Suroor’s stable has been winning only at maiden and handicap level. Windhoek’s form isn’t much better than that on turf, and Quick Wit is now seven.
French Navy, an entire, is officially top rated and has won over CD but his only success since November 2012 has been in a four-horse race, as if he’s not easy to put into his races.
A measure of his consistency, but lack of improvement, is revealed in his rating: 110 in August 2011, and 110 in September 2013. I’m, therefore, on the side of the improver Nabucco.
The John Gosden stable has kept this one – another entire – in training after seeing his form as a four-year-old lift 18lb from June to the end of last season, partly due to his penchant for soft ground.
2.15 The Curragh (Marble Hill Stakes) This time Aidan O’Brien is king, with recent results: 131131. The Great War is unbeaten and already a CD winner, and I hope that Cappella Sansevero can make the market for him.
2.40 Haydock (Temple Stakes) A shame that they should choose the same day to run this one and the Group 3 at The Curragh five minutes later. The difference is that this is 5f and The Curragh sprint is 6f.
It may well feel like 6f at Haydock if the rain gets into the ground. In fact, I have to assume soft going, which is against the firm-ground winners, Sole Power and Kingsgate Native (who is 121 in this), first and second in the Palace House Stakes earlier this month.
I punted the third home that day, Hot Streak, as the potential sprinter of the year. He didn’t win but looked as though he’d get his revenge any time soon, and he is not ground dependent.
2.45 The Curragh (Greenlands Stakes) A five-year spell of English winners must be broken today. But it’s a hard race to call, with official ratings (adjusted to 9st) of the first four on the card 101, 101, 102, 100.
Three-year-olds have been third (once) and fourth (three times) in the last seven seasons but that’s the best they could manage.
As Abbaye winner, Maarek could have won the Haydock sprint five minutes earlier but, as Duke Of York winner last time, and Curragh CD scorer in his youth, he must be favourite for this furlong further.
Darwin has won all his races on top of the ground, but rated Maarek’s equal is Slade Power from Edward Lynam’s stable in hot form.
Slade Power was crowned champion sprinter at Ascot last September (soft) with the favourite, Maarek himself, well beaten. But Maarek had had three races together, up to and including the Arc, and lost a shoe during the Ascot charge. I think he’ll get his revenge here for Evanna McCutcheon.
3.20 The Curragh (see my ABC Guide in the Tuesday archive) In fact, my ABC wasn’t as concise as usual because I followed the bookmakers markets and they got a lump of the field wrong.
The fluctuating ground – still uncertain; but showers expected on a yielding surface – has been a problem for connections (like which five of a dozen or so Ballydoyle should saddle)!
We’ve already seen in the English version how trial form can be turned on its head, and we know from past results of this Curragh Guineas how colts (particularly Ballydoyle colts) can come from nowhere at Newmarket and take this prize.
And we are back to the question of the ground: it was good to firm for the Newmarket Guineas but slow-run for such a description. I can see Kingman collared again in today’s more severe test.
In any case, the value is gone. They say second has the hardest race in a Guineas, and he won’t want rain. War Command, too, was once described by Ballydoyle as ‘a colt who wants good, firm ground.’
The excuse for War Command at Newmarket was that he’d had a ‘lazy winter’, and that ‘blinkers might help him’. In fact, they’ve put cheekpieces on. That just doesn’t appeal to me at Classic level, unless it’s a poor year.
Was he used up last year, winning (a poor) Coventry, the Dewhurst and Futurity? Stall 10 throws him out wide. Results by draw in the decade – 147249333 – help me fancy Mustajeeb in gate 2, with Kingman presumably bursting from the 1 stall.
Son of a 10f Group horse out of a close relative to a French Derby winner (also 10f), Mustajeeb wasn’t a match for War Command in the Futurity last season but was still learning, has wintered well and, in a change of tactics, came through smoothly from behind to beat older horses on his seasonal reappearance.
Shifting Power, fourth in the Newmarket Guineas, is by a sprint sire, and nothing else in the field matches up to my first three, in which Mustajeeb is the improver: 6.2 on BETDAQ this morning.
Daqman’s Irish 2,000 Guineas order-in: Mustajeeb 1, Kingman 2, War Command 3
3.45 Haydock (Silver Bowl) On collateral form through Almargo, Bilimbi was a few pounds behind Hot Coffee and What About Carlo. I say ‘was’ because he is an improver, lightly raced, and impresses as a winner on both firm and soft. His preference is for ease, and the forecast is rain.
What About Carlo has been hiked 10lb for his Sandown win and that leaves him vulnerable to the third horse home, First Flight, at the revised weights.
Hors De Combat is out (Mount Nelson’s progeny hate it soft.) In any case, he was badly in with Zarwaan on their Newbury meeting in April. Now it’s left the class-3 winner Red Stargazer (tied closely with Chatez), to give weight all round.
Chatez and Braidley are the pair bred for plenty of cut in the ground and, in a race like this, taking an early price about the favourite (Bilimbi) would not go down as value.
I shall, therefore, spend some of my wallet on Chatez at 12.0 and Bradiley at 24.0 (with a saver on Bilimbi).
If I knew that Braidley was fit, the 24.0 is madness: at Doncaster last backend, he beat Master Carpenter, who has been placed behind Kingman and Western Hymn this Spring.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 7pts win NABUCCO (1.50 Goodwood)
BANKER BET: 20pts win (nap) THE GREAT WAR (2.15 The Curragh)
BET 7.8pts win HOT STREAK (2.40 Haydock)
BET 12pts win MAAREK (2.45 The Curragh)
BET: 3.8pts win MUSTAJEEB (3.20 The Curragh)
BET: 1.8pts win and place CHATEZ, and 0.85pts win and place BRAIDLEY, plus 1.25pts win (all-stakes saver) BILIMBI (3.45 Haydock)
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