IT’S CAMBRIDGESHIRE DAY WITH 37.0 AND 21.0 DAQMAN BETS: Daqman is back in the winner-a-day groove but his followers need some forbearance on his recent big-race success. Maybe that will all change today, Cambridgeshire day. Daqman has bets at 37.0 and 21.0.
WON 4-1 FORBEARANCE Friday
WON 13-8 CAROLUS MAGNUS Thursday
DAQMAN LEADING PRICEWISE 54-32 INTO FINAL THREE WEEKS: Today is also a big day for the two-year-olds, with the Royal Lodge Stakes, Middle Park and Cheveley Park. See Daqman previews Monday and Tuesday in the archives. He goes into today 54-32 ahead of Pricewise after yesterday’s 4-1 winner in their challenge, with three weeks and two days of the season left.
Headlines:
21.0 LUCANDER TO GO ONE BETTER
MASEKELA ON THE WINNING TRAIL
NUGGET’S TURN TO STRIKE GOLD
I’M LODGING A 37.0 BETDAQ BET
DR ZEMPF A WORK IN PROGRESS
21.0 LUCANDER TO GO ONE BETTER
⚠️ HEADS UP Firm ground has cut a swathe through the Cambridgeshire field and brought a change of favourite this morning, with recent good-to-firm winner Anmaat gambled in to be clear market leader.
⭕ 3.40 Newmarket (Cambridgeshire Handicap) STATS: Trainers (20 years): John Gosden 4, Marcus Tregoning 2. Jockeys: Frankie Dettori 2.
Some 15 winners in 21 years had previously won a race over 1m 2f. John Gosden has won it twice in the last three years. Seven of the last 10 winners were drawn from 21 to 31.
My short-list against the field in Thursday’s preview, adding the draw since, included Anmaat (22), Astro King (17), Magical Morning (35) and Uncle Bryn (30).
I declared Magical Morning a ‘hidden horse’, with most of his form at a mile, but bred for the Cambridgeshire trip and more.
He needed the ground to dry out and he’s got it. He’s also got Frankie Dettori since I wrote that piece, and he’s in from 25-1 that day.
Dual winner over 10f, Anmaat will be staying on but Team Gosden should know all about him after their lower-level four-year-old Faisal ran second, giving him 10lb at Doncaster.
Royal Hunt Cup second Astro King comes into it, along with very lightly raced Long Tradition (out of 37 in first-time cheekpieces) for a trainer in form here yesterday, and another bred for further.
Last year’s runner-up Lucander (27) is again drawn on the near side (next door in 28), with the third out of 24, Bell Rock, now switched to the far side in 8.
Lucander had come from the big 1m 2f+ handicap at the York Ebor meeting last year. This time he was fourth in that same race but again it was a very good prep for this; he was leading inside the final furlong.
Value verdict: BETDAQ offers total 119% as I write, but the Total SP with bookies has peaked in the decade at 151%. Lucander looks value at 21.0, leaving me consolation bets on the Gosden hopes: around 13.0 both Magical Morning and Uncle Bryn.
MASEKELA ON THE WINNING TRAIL
⭕ 1.50 Newmarket (Royal Lodge Stakes) Masekela’s Washington Singer win was franked by the runner-up Bayside Boy, when he turned over the odds-on Reach For The Moon at Doncaster earlier this month.
Andrew Balding has had a great season but his Majestic Glory ran as if something was amiss in the Rockfel yesterday, so I won’t be supernapping Masekela. Just hoping he can restore the balance at the main expense of another smart Charlie Appleby youngster, Coroebus.
Both will have to go a bit if Jason Hart sends Mark Johnston Royal Patronage to the front though a reminder that his all-the-way win the Acomb Stakes was 7f and this is a mile.
Second reminder: Masekela, who is bred for further, was only short-headed on the July Course by Native Trail, whose National Stakes defeat of Point Lonsdale has him top of my two-year-olds winners’ list.
BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE 3.25 Masekela
NUGGET’S TURN TO STRIKE GOLD
⭕ 2.05 Haydock Nugget hasn’t been out of the first three in eight starts since his maiden. He’s by the Arc-winning sire of St Mark’s Basilica out of a Galileo mare.
Newbury Spring Cup winner and neck second in the Thirsk Hunt Cup.
Nugget is giving 3lb to York scorer Cruyff Turn, who just held today’s Cambridgeshire hopes Magical Morning and Astro King when he won a big-field handicap at the Ebor meeting.
Cruyff Turn’s earlier success was from the front and, back in a small field here, he is likely to play catch-me, offering a back-and-lay situation for punters at 5.8 on BETDAQ as I write.
Nugget and Noble Dynasty are both bred to get further som, in theory, their jockeys won’t be quaking in their irons.
Noble Dynasty is from the season’s stable sensation of Charlie Appleby but he’s taken 15 months in a sparse career of four races to climb the ranks (favourite every time).
I fancy an Appleby strike in the 2.40 with Royal Crusade, dropped from the pattern into a class-2 handicap.
BETDAQ value 3.85 Nugget (2.05) and 8.6 Royal Crusade (2.40)
I’M LODGING A 37.0 BETDAQ BET
⭕ 2.25 Newmarket (Cheveley Park Stakes) The unbeaten Round Tower winner Sacred Bridge meets the Lowther Stakes one-two, Zain Claudette and Sandrine, in a shoot-out which could see the winner top the fillies’ ratings for the season over Inspiral.
Aidan O’Brien won this three years running (2016-18) but Tenebrism has run and won just the once. Given time to mature on a 181-day holiday but, as it stands, has beaten horses which have lost 34 of 36 subsequent starts.
Sacred Bridge has stepped up every time she’s won but Zain Claudette impressed as a Guineas filly able to take care of Albany and Duchess Of Cambridge winner, Sandrine, over 6f at York.
Sandrine carried a penalty that day and there’s nothing much between them now (in fact they are both rated on 108), though Zain Claudette seems to be the one capable of attacking the rising ground out of the dip.
One thing worries me (just the one, Daqman?): the three principals are drawn 1, 2, 3 and will likely make up a middle-to-far-side group.
The near side has been strong this week and Eve Lodge (out of stall 10) is a big price considering her step up to beat a top colt, subsequent Mill Reef winner Wings Of War, in the Sirenia.
BETDAQ value 7.4 Zain Claudette, 37 Eve Lodge
DR ZEMPF A WORK IN PROGRESS
⭕ 3.00 Newmarket (Middle Park Stakes) Another cracking two-year-olds’ test, with Perfect Power from the one stall likely to get an early lead from the Railway Stakes winner, Go Bears Go (in 4).
Go Bears Go was only just denied (a head) by Perfect Power in the Norfolk Stakes and on Thursday morning that form looked unbeatable, with Trident all set to frank the Prix Morny form in France as runner-up to Perfect Power (Asymmetric third and Molecomb Stakes winner Armor fourth).
But Trident was left standing over further by Modern Games, though ‘left standing on three legs’ was the excuse, returning as he did with a lost near-fore shoe.
HMS Endeavour will be in Bears’ group, a first foal by War Front but who impressed Seamie Heffernan at Navan.
On the nearside are the Morny third and fourth, Asymmetric (9) and Armor (8), along with Dr Zempf (10), who finished in front of Go Bears Go and Castle Star when runner-up in the Phoenix Stakes.
That was a step up; he’d finished behind them when beaten favourite for the Railway Stakes. That’s another example of the musical-chair two-year-old form, in which those who are a work in progress gradually take over.
BETDAQ value 5.5 Dr Zempf
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.50 Newmarket (win 10)
BET 4pts win MASEKELA
2.05 Haydock (win 20 nap)
BET 7pts win NUGGET
2.25 Newmarket (win 25, win 10 a place)
BET 4pts win ZAIN CLAUDETTE
BET 1pt win and 2pts place EVE LODGE
2.40 Haydock (win 20)
BET 2.5pts win ROYAL CRUSADE
3.00 Newmarket (win 20)
BET 4.5pts win DR ZEMPF
3.40 Newmarket (win 50 BULL’S-EYE BET, place win 10)
BET 2.5pts win and place LUCANDER
BET 4pts win MAGICAL MORNING
BET 4pts win UNCLE BRYN
What are points? Points facilitate a staking plan, which is the secret to creating profit. One point is whatever you choose: a pound, a euro, or whatever ….
Start with a bank and decide how much you can afford to lose over a period of time, and determine the size of your bets accordingly. Daqman makes this variation every day.
