GOLD BANKER AND OAKS HIT AT 25-1: Daqman yesterday scooped 100 points profit from his ante-post bet, Enable, in the Oaks. He also landed a rare Gold Banker in the Coronation Cup:
WON 25-1 ENABLE (Ton-up Oaks bet: SP 6-1)
WON 9-4 HIGHLAND REEL (30-point Gold Banker)
WON 3-1 G K CHESTERTON (doubles and treble)
WON 13-8 DE BROYNE HORSE (straight win)
3RD 14-1 HOME CUMMINS (place)
90-1 TREBLE FOR 344 POINTS PROFIT: Enable, G K Chesterton and Highland Reel landed him three winning doubles and a 90-1 treble taking his profit on fabulous Friday to a total of 344 points to recommended stakes.
HE GOES 80 AHEAD OF PRICEWISE: Daqman’s super-day shot him 80 points clear of the Racing Post’s Pricewise to single-unit stakes. The challenge score is:
28 DAQMAN
08 PRICEWISE
NOW FOR A DERBY COUP AT 10-1: Enable’s victory was Daqman’s SIXTH Classic winner this season, and he has another ante-post bet carried forward to the Derby today: 10-1 about Cliffs Of Moher. What’s his final verdict?
CLASSIC FACT: BETDAQ WINS AGAIN
The big field means it’s an open Derby. So they say. But they also say ‘the bigger the field the bigger the certainty.’ And, in fact, half the runners shouldn’t even be there.
I nearly said ‘have no business to be there,’ but the lure within the £1,624,000 race is not only the prizemoney down to six places but also the bloodstock boost of getting somewhere near the winner. Big, big business, in fact.
Key races The Derby results leave us in no doubt that there are two key races – and I’ll give you their results in Fake News below – which time and again reveal the ability required to become the big Epsom winner:
DANTE Winner and second in the Dante Stakes trial at York. This year that gives you Permian and Benbatl.
DERRINSTOWN This year’s winner of the Leopardstown Derby Trial was Douglas Macarthur.
Ratings The official ratings reveal an incredibly tight Derby. Or do you think those with potential can rise to the top? This is how the handicapper sees them:
113 Best Solution (BETDAQ 14.5 but beware 12-1 bookies offers)
113 Permian (BETDAQ 11.0 but 9-1 with one major firm)
112 Eminent (BETDAQ 8.4 but 6-1 and 13-2 with bookies)
111 Benbatl (BETDAQ 27.0 but mostly 22-1 with bookies)
111 Douglas Macarthur (BETDAQ 32.0 but as short as 20-1, mostly 25-1, with the fixed-odds layers)
111 Khalidi (BETDAQ 27.0 but as low as 16-1 with bookies)
111 Rekindling (BETDAQ 28.0 but as low as 20-1, 22-1)
111 Venice Beach (BETDAQ 15.0 but 12-1 in places)
110 Capri (BETDAQ 17.5 but as low as 10-1 and 12-1) and Salouen (BETDAQ 46.0 but 33-1 and 40-1 in many places with bookmakers)
Conclusion The common factor throughout is the value this morning in a 106% overround orange list of offers on BETDAQ.
ABC Guide Check out the Daqman ABC Guide in Thursday’s column in the Archives.
FAKE NEWS: DERBY REALITY CHECK
Draw: LOW IS ESSENTIAL. Not true. There’s been only one winning gate below 7 since 2009. Seven years’ results by stall: 8, 7, 5, 10, 12, 8, 9.
Experience: YOU MUST HAVE IT. Not true. Derby winners are mainly matured from very few races and careful home preparation. The last eight winners had between two and four career starts only before taking the Classic.
Favourites: THEY ALWAYS WIN. Not even half true. Only four (just one at odds on) have scored in the decade but don’t look much beyond them. Six winners were 7-1, 13-2, 6-1, 5-1, 4-1, 11-4. The biggest priced winner in 15 years was 7-1.
Trials: THE DANTE IS THE BEST TRIAL. In fact, the Derrinstown has provided three winners in the decade, the same as the Dante.
But the Derrinstown had a sensational run as kingmaker between 2000 and 2006. Sinndar, Galileo, High Chaparral, Yeats and Dylan Thomas won it in the space of six years. Phenomenal!
Value: YOU’VE GOT TO SEARCH FOR A PRICE. Not true. It’s right there at the click of your mouse. Because BETDAQ offers add up to only 106% overround, you are getting value whatever you choose from the punter-friendly orange, almost a level-playing field. Compare with the bookies’ Total SP take in the last three Derbys: 125, 122 and 126% overround.
DAQMAN’S DERBY VERDICT BELOW
BLUE SKY OVER THE DOWNS
2.00 Epsom Very hard to find a winning favourite from past results – just one there in 2008 – with SPs of 25-1 (twice), 16-1, 10-1 and 9-1 since then.
Sylvester Kirk has made this race his own with three winning outsiders (25-1, 16-1 and 10-1) since 2009, two of them off lightweights (8st 6lb and 8st).
Here is with Mister Blue Sky off 8st., who has swerved several opportunities to wait for today and ran in a turnkey race for this, t he Esher Cup.
I took 13.0 on BETDAQ this morning. I hope we get eight runners, giving us three chances of a place.
FOX TO BOOST GUINEAS FORM
2.35 Epsom (Princess Elizabeth Stakes) It seems strange to see three-year-olds taking on older horses already but in fact the Classic crop goes for a hat-trick here after winning with Arabian Queen and Epsom Icon, who comes back for more.
She’s been very busy this year with five runs already but should avenge defeat by Tisbutadream on the last day, 19lb better off for just short of five lengths.
But a stronger three-year-old filly on the book, already rated 104, is Urban Fox, third to Rhododendron in the Fillies Mile, and second in the Fred Darling.
Urban Fox was outrun by Kilmah at Goodwood (7f) last August). Both ran in the 1,000 Guineas, with Kilmah rated just 4lb behind Urban Fox now.
Urban Fox (8th) didn’t get a clear passage in the Guineas, whereas Kilmah was well there two out until fading. This race is interesting enough for the duel between those two alone- with Kilmah likely to play catch-me.
But they are not even in the front rank of the betting. Laugh Aloud is favourite for her runaway Goodwood win (more than six lengths clear of Epsom Icon).
But both he and Absolute Blast, placed behind Convey in two AW championships, including the Winter Derby, seem firmly stuck at Listed level.
Elbereth is in my Fortune Cookies but I doubt she’ll run agai after yesterday,. I took 11.0 Urban Fox to boost the Guineas form, which will be represented by Eminen tin the Derby.
I FANCY A BUICK ‘FOLKS’ DANCE
3.10 Epsom (Diomed Stakes) William Buick gave us a master class over this mile yesterday and he could do the same here with freegoing 5.2 offer Folkswood, who was beaten only a neck by the tough Decorated Knight in Meydan.
He was also right there with Deauville in a Group 3 (1m 2f plus) at Chester before fading inside the final furlong, and this looks ideal.
3.45 Epsom (Dash) Caspian Prince returns for an interrupted treble, having landed the race twice but with Desert Law intervening in 2015. He’s 20.0 on BETDAQ this morning.
Duke Of Firenze, another previous winner (2013), was beaten into third by Caspian Prince last year and is much worse off with him this time around.
As for the rest, take a hatpin out of you great granny’s drawer and take a stab at the card. You won’t regret A Momentofmadness (19.5 on BETDAQ is far too big). Ouch!
But you’ll also need one drawn high. Boom The Groom in stall 18 and 14.0 on BETDAQ has the lightning speed (beat a host of these in very fast time at York in August) and has already been thereabouts twice in this race.
EMINENT MAIN THREAT TO MOHER
4.30 Epsom (The Derby) I’m going against the grain, as ever. I don’t like being with the crowd. The crowd by definition can never get rich: there wouldn’t be enough money to go round.
Firstly, my view is that the Dante Stakes trial wasn’t such a great race this year. Reason? That was one-time nursery winner Permian’s 10th race. The Derby will be ‘legs eleven’.
No horse since Psidium in 1961 has had that many runs leading up to Derby success. And no horse since Tulyar in 1952 had won a nursery as a two-year-old and then won the Derby.
I take out Permian and I put a line through the runner-up Benbatl and the fourth, Rekindling, just as Sir Michael Stoute did when he removed the third, Crystal Ocean, from the Epsom line-up on the grounds that he is not yet ready to do himself justice at the top.
Permian also has doubtful stamina and so has Best Solution. Though there is stamina on the dam’s side, I cannot in my wildest dreams (nightmares if it happens!) see a son of sprint-sire Kodiac winning a Derby.
Cracksman is by Frankel who was a mile and mile and a quarter horse, and his dam’s side also registers 1m 2f as his likely best trip.
Best potential for staying the trip lie with Capri, Cliffs Of Moher, Crowned Eagle, related to Oaks and Derby placed horse but falling short on form; plus Douglas Macarthur, brother to an Oaks winner; and Eminent.
Though Eminent is a Frankel, his dam’s line goes back to three Derby winners and his Guineas show – sixth, staying on, after being squeezed up – is what you’d expect of a stamina horse caught out for speed by the flying Churchill.
Capri and Douglas Macarthur were separated by a head and a short-head in the Derrinstown. Both had earlier races together in which they finished behind Rekindling and Waldgeist (withdrawn). They’re all of a heap.
VERDICT: I have repeated several times my faith in Cliffs Of Moher, and outlined my reasons for it when I put him up as a BETDAQ ante-post bet at 10-1.
I cannot see beyond Eminent (8.4) as the main threat. He might even be favourite if trained by one of the top names, though you could reverse that idea and worry whether his small yard has the skills to handle the job.
Cracksman I see finishing like Rhododendron yesterday, just short of the stamina required. But punters’ godsend, John Gosden, is eminently (!) capable of producing a Derby winner (there were doubts before the race about Golden Horn’s stamina).
ORDER-IN: 1 Cliffs Of Moher, 2 Eminent, 3 Cracksman
DAQMAN’S BETS
2.00 Epsom
BET (to win 20) 1.6pts win and place MISTER BLUE SKY
2.35 Epsom
BULL’S-EYE BET (to win 50): 5pts win and place URBAN FOX
STAKES SAVER (to win 10pts) 10pts win LAUGH ALOUD
3.10 Epsom
BET (to win 30) 7.5pts (nap) FOLKSWOOD
3.45 Epsom (The Dash)
BET (to win 50) 2.75pts win and place A MOMENTOFMADNESS
BET (to win 50) 3.75pts win and place BOOM THE GROOM
BET (to win 50) 2.5pts win and place CASPIAN PRINCE
4.30 Epsom (The Derby)
BET (ante-post at 10-1): 5pts win CLIFFS OF MOHER
BET (to win 30) 4pts win and place EMINENT
DAQ MULTIPLES: 5 x 2pt win doubles and 2 x 1pt win treble Urban Fox and Laugh Aloud (2.35 Epsom) with Folkswood (3.10 Epsom) and with Cliffs Of Moher and Eminent (4.30 Epsom)
Did you know that as well as checking the realtime prices on BETDAQ below – you can also log into your account and place your bets directly into BETDAQ from BETDAQ TIPS.
