BETDAQ BACKERS’ 100% BONUS: Who won the races yesterday? Answer: BETDAQ backers by a long chalk. Just look at the amazing value achieved by Daqman: 12.0 about the 5-1 winner Fadhayyil and 22.0 about the 12-1 Nunthorpe third, Mattmu. It’s 100% better betting on BETDAQ!
NUNTHORPE DOUBLE WHAMMY: Daqman, daring as ever in his attack on Pricewise of the Racing Post, landed a Double Whammy in the Nunthorpe Stakes when he laid the favourite, Acapulco, and landed his place bet on Mattmu. This puts him 78-11 up over his rival in winning bets.
WINNERS AT 14-1, 10-1, 7-1, 5-1: Daqman has scored 11 times altogether, Friday to Friday, including two naps, as follows:
WON 14-1 Rhombus (Friday, Colwick Cup, Nottingham)
WON 10-1 Mubtaqaa (Saturday, Newmarket)
WON 7-1 Heartbreak City (Wednesday Hidden Horse, York)
WON 5-1 Fadhayyil (yesterday, York, from 12.0 on BETDAQ)
WON 4-1 Don’t Touch (Saturday, Great St Wilfrid, Ripon)
WON 31-10 Baino Hope (Friday, Deauville)
WON 11-8 Premier Currency (Monday, nap, BETDAQ Kempton races)
WON 6-4 Khusoosy (Monday, BETDAQ Kempton races)
WON 10-11 Kazziana (Tuesday nap, BETDAQ Kempton races)
WON (place) Mattmu (yesterday, Nunthorpe, 3rd 12-1 from 22.0 on BETDAQ)
WON (lay) Acapulco (yesterday, Nunthorpe, 2nd 15-8)
47.0 EBOR OUTSIDER TO FOIL IRISH 1-2-3
3.45 York (Ebor Handicap) I warned in my York preview at the beginning of the week that Aidan O’Brien intended to win Wednesday’s Great Voltigeur with blanket entries (he finished second and third) and one laid out – yes, just the one – for today’s Ebor.
The day dawns and Fields Of Athenry looks very hard to beat. The last time a three-year-old won the race, it was trained by O’Brien (Mediterranean (2001) and ‘Fields’ is rated 17lb better.
Fields of Athenry (9.6 on BETDAQ early mouse) is already the proverbial ‘Group horse in a handicap’ – he won the Ballyroan Stakes at The Curragh – and, as well as class, has the potential for bags of stamina, as brother to a 2m 5f hurdler/chaser.
Fellow Irish raider, Willie Mullins’ Clondaw Warrior, is a handicapper on the Flat but also has the mix of speed and stamina, as a Graded hurdler and winner of the Guinness Handicap at the Galway Festival.
Trained by yet another Irishman, Tony Martin – my hero this week for giving me Heartbreak City – and yet another Graded hurdler with leading Flat credentials is Cesarewitch third, Quick Jack, offered at 8.0 in the orange.
His Galway Hurdle defeat of Max Dynamite now looks extra special, after Max took yesterday’s Lonsdale Cup at York, beating the cream of English stayers, including the Gold Cup winner.
A second Mullins’ hope, Wicklow Brave, is unexposed and would have a chance if the rains came; he’s already rated a pound above Quick Jack. Has the home contingent any hope of beating this quadruple attack from the Irish?
Watersmeet (47.0 this morning) is stamina-packed on the dam’s side, and has soared 31lb this year, racing as though the Ebor’s 1m 6f could be his trip.
Ajman Bridge looked unlucky at Goodwood – a nose behind Astronereus – in his first attempt at today’s distance, but he hasn’t actually won a race for nearly two years and, if this is the plan, it’s been a very long time in the hatching.
The year younger Astronereus has more scope but both have to turn around Goodwood form with Arab Dawn, lightly raced this season and another four-year-old with improvement in him, though nothing shouts stamina from the breeding.
Arab Dawn’s yard also runs Northumberland Plate third Nearly Caught and Fun Mac, who is weighted to reverse Ascot Stakes form with the winner, Clondaw Warrior. That takes me neatly back to the Irish.
VERDICT: With no overnight rain, the ground had dried out this morning, and a sunny 24C is forecast, but there is a ‘yellow warning of rain’, with thunderstorms heading for the Knavesmire by about 3pm.
Arabian Comet, Clondaw Warrior, Excellent Result, Notarised and Quick Jack have all won more than once on good ground.
Astronereus, Clondaw Warrior, Fields Of Athenry, Nearly Caught, Quick Jack, Toe The Line (a fifth Irish horse!) and Wicklow Brave have all won on soft ground.
No winner has come from a single-figure stall which seems to put the kybosh on the Willie Mullins pair, Clondaw Warrior (in 1) and Wicklow Brave (4). Like Pricewise, I’m backing three.
A high stall allows Donnacha O’Brien to ‘bury’ Fields Of Athenry, normally a front or van runner. The Racing Post says he’ll have to be a St Leger winner to score from gate 22. Since he’s 8-1 for Doncaster, he probably is!
Daqman’s Ebor 1-2-3: Fields Of Athenry 1, Quick Jack 2, Watersmeet 3
BAY LOOKS BIG IN THE MELROSE AT 23.0
2.00 York Godolphin are 11411 in this since 2006, and Basem is a strong contender today, with nine out of 10 winners aged four and five.
Basem (8.8 on BETDAQ this morning) missed the break or might have landed a hat-trick at Goodwood (John Gosden’s Royal Hunt Cup winner Gm Hopkins behind).
Front-runner Mondialiste and the other Gosden runner Mahsoob have already won in the Pattern at Listed level, while Group-3 scorer Top Notch Tonto has won and been second at York this season.
Convey is a Stoute improver (pun intended) but may need a bit more time take a race like this, after just the two starts.
2.35 York (Melrose Handicap) This seems wide open (9.2 the field in the BETDAQ orange this morning) but lurking somewhere here, usually with less than 9st, is a Group horse in the making, if past results are any guide.
Dannyday, Duke Street, Graceland, and Wind Place And Sho all have to make the leap from class 4 success, Al from class 5, and Black Key and Wonder Laish from maidens.
Havisham, King Bolete, Putting Green and Yorkidding have already done well at this class-2 level, while Antiquarian, Hernandoshideaway, Maxwell and Not Never have all scored in class 3. Six of the last 10 winners came from these levels.
If I’m going with Fields Of Athenry in the Ebor, I have to bet on Botany Bay, though 23.0 on BETDAQ as I write, who beat that one with a light weight like this in June.
And, if I’m with Botany Bay, I must also back his Ballydoiyle stablemate Outspoken (11.5), who has already beaten him twice this season.
FLYING FINNEGAN FOR THE GIMCRACK
3.10 York (Gimcrack Stakes) This is fast and classy and can produce Middle Park and Mill Reef winners and, in the last couple of years, white-hot sprinters like Astaire and Muhaarar.
With the Coventry winner, Buratino, and the National Stakes star, King Of Rooks, in the line-up, there’s sure to be a solid winner to take out of the race.
William Haggas, who has won this twice in the decade, is double-handed, with the unbeaten Dream Ahead colt Raucous and Ajaya, a son of Kodiak.
There’s not much between Areen and Buratino on a line through Washington Dc, which puts Ajaya in front of them both.
But I shall assume that, if Welsey Ward can go close in the Nunthorpe with a two-year-old (phew! lay landed), his runner here, Finnegan, can be expected to ‘fly’.
Finnegan has indeed been ‘breezing’ with the Nunthorpe nearly horse Acapulco and, if the ground remains dry, rates the nap.
BLOND MOMENT TO GET BALDING BACK
1.45 Sandown Three-year-olds dominate this, and I’m ogling Blond Me. Group-1 entered, she has ‘done nothing wrong’ (not my kind of blonde, then), though I just wish Andrew Balding was in a bit better form.
2.50 Sandown Only a 10lb short handicap makes life hard for punters in the Ebor today, but here’s an old-fashioned one, with top to bottom ranged 24lb apart. No wonder they go 7.4 the field on BETDAQ this morning.
I was delighted that Barry Hills, who’s kept my coffers full for many years, was able to land the City of York Stakes with Fadhayyil yesterday and I’ll spend a pound of it on Elkaayed (11.5), now that Barrington has him back to form.
But I thought Spark Plug would win the Royal Hunt Cup. He clipped heels and came down, and a colt he’d beaten earlier, Gm Hopkins, won the races.
Given a confidence booster on today’s course last month and, despite top-weight, Spark Plug rates a bet at 12.0 on BETDAQ.
Maybe he was the Group horse in the handicap that day at Royal Ascot. Maybe, since three-year-olds don’t win this, and there are only ‘rags’ below them, this is a 10lb handicap after all. Maybe.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 30 points unless stated)
BET 5.3pts win BLOND ME (1.45 Sandown)
BET 3.8pts win and place BASEM (2.00 York)
BULL’S-EYE (win 50) BETS: 4.7pts win OUTSPOKEN, and 2pts win and place BOTANY BAY (2.35 York)
BET 2.8pts win on each ELKAAYED and SPARK PLUG (2.50 Sandown)
BET 9pts win (nap) FINNEGAN (3.10 York)
BULL’S-EYE (win 50) BETS: 7pts win QUICK JACK, 5.8pts win FIELDS OF ATHENRY, and 1pt win and place WATERSMEET (3.45 York)
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