STEWARDS’ INQUIRY: JUST HOW DOES DAQMAN KEEP ON WINNING? Goodbye to Goodwood for another year. But will Daqman say that with a smile? He’s 26-11 in front of Pricewise after a 1-1 draw yesterday, and is looking for a Stewards Cup win to pull them further apart (he’s currently 278 points clear), with BETDAQ value bets up to 33.0.
Headlines
🔹 PROMPTING A BET ON TOMMY G
🔹 MY ADVICE IS TO GO FOR VALUE
🔹 WHY I’LL BE FALLING FOR SNOW
🔹 MARK UP MERAAS FOR THE CUP
🔹 DIAMOND DAY FOR BEN CURTIS
🔹 I’M GOING TO WAR WITH DIARY
PROMPTING A BET ON TOMMY G
⚠️ HEADS UP: Leading trainers at Goodwood this week: William Haggas 4 and two each Aidan O’Brien, Charlie Appleby, Richard Hannon, Marcus Tregoning, Clive Cox, Charles Hills and Richard Fahey.
Top jockeys: Tom Marquand 5, William Buick 4, Ryan Moore 4, Jim Crowley 3, Oisin Murphy 3; Andrea Atzeni and Harry Bentley 2 each.
⭕ 1.50 Goodwood (Stewards Sprint, Stewards Cup Consolation) Rewaayat, 12lb higher, is obliged to leap three grades. Won as he liked at Salisbury but the placed horses have all been well beaten since.
Tommy G (BETDAQ 7.0 taken) is 6lb lower than when third in the race last year – he was second the year before – and comes to the Consolation after running second at Ayr to yesterday’s Golden Mile winner, Prompting.
Though hard ridden to beat an 80 horse at Haydock, Treacherous (holds Lamplighter) has been put up to 83, some 8lb higher than for his class-5 win in June at Goodwood but still below his AW mark.
Saluti beat a big field at Doncaster in the autumn and came back to form at Pontefract on the last day.
Exchanging at 33.0 in the BETDAQ this morning, Music Society gave 6lb and a beating to Highly Sprung in the 2019 Ayr Bronze Cup and Tim Easterby has booked jockey of the week Tom Marquand.
Ryan Moore has taken the ride on Batchelor Boy, three times a Wolverhampton AW winner but yet to score on turf.
Tommy G comes out of the one stall, from which Poyle Vinnie scored last year, and Music Society is in 7. Four of the last six have found Consolation from this side.
Rewaayat ( stall 12), Batchelor Boy (16 ) and Saluti (17) may tell us which side to be on in the Stewards Cup at 3.35.
MY ADVICE IS TO GO FOR VALUE
⭕ 2.25 Goodwood (Summer Handicap) Kings Advice won this gamely last year and is down 4lb in the weights, now giving the third, Shailene, only 4lb instead of 10lb.
Stablemate Themaxwecan won here in September but is inconsistent and high in the weights. Indianapolis takes a step up in trip, his two successes coming at 1m 4f.
Laafy is also hard to assess, as a 1m 4f gelding who won over 1m 6f on heavy a year or so ago, but has had to drop back to 1m 4f to win again.
King’s Advice looks value at BETDAQ 8.7, alongside the 3.55 offers about Laafy this morning.
WHY I’LL BE FALLING FOR SNOW
⭕ 3.00 Goodwood (Lillie Langtry Stakes) With the ground too firm and after a five-lengths defeat by Enbihaar in this race a year ago, Manuela De Vega has dropped out.
Enbihaar has been been beaten favourite twice on the soft. Firm-surface form: 2111. Hard to beat today but ..
Stepping up to 1m 6f, this is Snow’s test for the Irish St Leger. Her brother, Kew Gardens, won the Doncaster St Leger and the British Champions Long Distance Cup, when he beat Stradivarius.
Snow who, like Kew Gardens, is trained Aidan O’Brien, won the Munster Oaks but weakened out of the Irish Oaks, trying to make all.
Roger Varian won this in 2018 with Pilaster, who was only fifth to Enbihaar last year, so he runs stamina-bred Cabaletta, whose Listed win the last day made up only in part for her stinker behind Manuela De Vega at Haydock. I just prefer Snow, 5.0 in the BETDAQ orange as I write.
MARK UP MERAAS FOR THE CUP
⭕ 3.35 Goodwood (Stewards Cup) Three-year-olds have won three of the last five, and extremes of the draw prevail: stalls 1, 3 and 4 are five out of eight, and 22, 25 and 26 won the three others.
Meraas, aged three, and coming out of gate 4, with three wins out of four for Mark Johnston, comfortably won the Scottish Stewards Cup.
Meraas is so highly regarded, he was waiting in the wings to play a part in the King George, in case Battaash had to miss the race for any reason. A morning plunge in the BETDAQ orange, 9.0 to 7.0. I’ll claim 8.0.
Lexington Dash, also three, stepped up dramatically from a class-5 novice on the Rowley mile course to win a class 2 at the same venue, albeit in a small field.
He was then short of room, fourth on soft on the July Course, with Meraas seven lengths behind. Dash is in stall 25 today.
Swindler, also drawn high in 23, won two decent contests at Ascot last summer on firm, and had a run back in June. Tasty steal at BETDAQ 18.0.
Gulliver (stall 3) is 9lb higher than when sixth last year, after running fourth in the Wokingham and second in the Scurry at The Curragh.
The Wokingham winner was Hey Jonesy in first-time blinkers, just beating Summerghand but better off with that one today.
Kimifive (in the one stall) has an 8lb pull with which to reverse a Haydock one-two with Barbill (21) in June. Third home Aljady is not so well in.
DIAMOND DAY FOR BEN CURTIS
⭕ 3.50 Newmarket Ben Curtis has won on three of his last five rides and is leading jockey for the year on 114 winners, only four behind Pierre-Charles Boudot, regarded as an angel in the saddle in France.
Yet Curtis has had more mounts in Yorkshire this week than at Goodwood, and only Mark Johnston of the ‘big boys’ seems to want to know.
But note that on this Newmarket July Course today he’s found favour with William Haggas (12.55 Desert Caravan and 1.30 Baarij).
And Johnston puts him up on Vivid Diamond in this one (BETDAQ 7.0), to which the Lily Langtry at Goodwood would be doubly a pointer. Vivid Diamond got within three lengths of Enbihaar last season, and swerves the Goodwood race, for this lesser contest.
Dubious Affair has run up a sequence of four but, if she’s to get even better, then Sir Michael Stoute, her previous trainer, lost out on an improving older filly. I don’t think so.
Withhold, one of six rides here for Oisin Murphy, has run against the best over extreme distances but will he have the foot for this on firm ground?
Moonlight Spirit seems to have lost his way, and Charlie Appleby banks on a pair of blinkers and William Buick, swerving Goodwood for eight rides here today.
I’M GOING TO WAR WITH DIARY
⭕ 5.15 Galway Tony Martin has won this 1m 4f handicap twice in the last six years, and his five-year-old Melburnian easily beat Halimi (second), Lynwood Gold (fourth) and Pearl Warrior (beaten favourite) in a similar big handicap on the soft at Leopardstown in the autumn.
The stable has been out of form but Melburnian (BETDAQ 12.5 taken) ran with promise in the Cork Derby last month, and has a plum draw in stall 5.
Runner-up at Cork was Mick Halford’s War Diary (6.6 today), never out of the frame, including fourth in this race last year when there wasn’t much cut in the ground.
Princess Zoe (7lb penalty) and Memorabilis seem to be in the hands of the handicapper but there could be more to come.
The Melburnian team should know how they stand with Princess Zoe, as Tony Martin had the third horse, Golden Spear, in the Thursday handicap Zoe won. Golden Spear won today’s race in 2016.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.50 Goodwood (win 50, place win 10, win 10)
BULL’S-EYE BET 8pts win TOMMY G
BULL’S-EYE BET 1.5pts win, 2.5pts place MUSIC SOCIETY
STAKES SAVER: 3.5pts win REWAAYAT
2.25 Goodwood (win 20)
BET 2.5pts win KING’S ADVICE
3.00 Goodwood (win 20)
BET 5pts win (nap) SNOW
3.35 Goodwood (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BET 7pts win MERAAS
BULL’S-EYE BET 3pts win SWINDLER
3.50 Newmarket (win 20)
BET 3.25pts win VIVID DIAMOND
5.15 Galway (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BET 9pts win WAR DIARY
BULL’S-EYE BET 4.25pts win MELBURNIAN
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