LATEST SCORE: 566 POINTS PROFIT NOT OUT: Daqman’s horses to follow, now forming Fortune Cookies for the festival season, has two runners today – Charbel (napped in the 2.05 Kempton) and Rockpoint (2.25 Warwick) – hoping to increase still further the massive 566 points profit if you’d backed every starter in the NH lists since the end of the Flat.
DAQMAN CLEAN BOWLING PRICEWISE AGAIN: Daqman is 15-7 up in his continuing battle with Pricewise of the Racing Post. Or does his 10-0 season-by-season score make it a walk-over? He still wants to improve on his current profit of +3pts (Pricewise -8)
WINNERS LIKE 9-PINS THIS WEEK ALREADY: In the daily account he’s hit nine winners this week, very close to two a day.. and his big day, Saturday, is still to come.
WON 7-2 WOT A SHOT (Monday)
WON 1-1 GIVEN CHOICE (supernap, Monday)
WON 10-11 CLOUDY GLEN (Monday)
WON 5-6 RIBBLE VALLEY (supernap, Tuesday)
WON 13-8 NOT THAT FUISSE (Wednesday)
WON 8-11 COURT HOUSE (Wednesday)
WON 7-4 SHARP RESPONSE (Thursday)
WON 13-8 DAYBREAK BOY (Thursday)
WON 7-4 PRABENI (Friday)
PRINCE BOOSTED AGAINST KING
12.20 Kempton Alan King tries for a hat-trick in this after taking it with the subsequent Adonis winner Redicean and recent Listed scorer Fidux.
His pair today, Tiffin Top and Running Cloud, have to step up a couple of grades to match the improved form (after a wind op) of Chaparral Prince when he was second here at Kempton the day after Boxing Day.
I tipped the third horse home, Prabeni, to boost the form at Huntingdon yesterday and, sure enough, he won a class 2 there easily.
IT’S ALL HANGING ON GARDENS
1.00 Fairyhouse I was talking yesterday about the impact that the Irish results are sure to have on Cheltenham from this weekend’s racing at Fairyhouse and Punchestown and from the Dublin Festival at Leopardstown first weekend in February.
Horses in this are targeting the Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown and, of course, are hopeful of a place in the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham. All you have to do is spot the improvement. Did I say ‘all’? The collateral is tight.
The third horse when Gardens Of Babylon beat Surin on the last day of 2018 had earlier finished a similar distance behind Lever Du Soleil at Gowran.
The ex-Guillaume-Macaire filly La Sorelita should be better for her first run in England. But the stats say that fillies don’t win this, and I shall look for improvement from Gardens Of Babylon at 4.7 on BETDAQ this morning.
Last year’s winner of the bumper (3.50) went on to be third in the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham but won the championship at the Punchestown Festival later in the spring.
CHARBEL CAN GO TO THE TOP
2.05 Kempton Last year’s winner of this, Waiting Patiently, could go for the Ladbrokes Dublin Chase on the Saturday (February 2) of the Dublin Festival or Ruth Jefferson could wait patiently for the Sunday’s Irish Gold Cup.
Top Notch, only fourth to Waiting Patiently in the Ascot Chase last February, tries to pick up the threads of Nicky Henderson’s hat-trick in this Kempton race after his winning it with Triolo d’Alene (2016) and Vaniteux (2017).
He locks horns with Charbel, who has the same 162 rating but seemed to improve in the autumn, beating both Baron Alco and Gods Own, and running Politologue to half a length in between.
YES, I’M FOR GREAT PRETENDER
2.40 Kempton (Lanzarote Hurdle) Was Darling Maltaix, who eased past Milrow at Ascot in December, 10lb better? The handicapper thinks so now and I landed a touch that day in the belief that he was.
Milrow had been thereabouts in big fields beforehand, but the Ascot event was for conditionals; they often produce misleading form.
Kloud Gate has won hurdles back to back, since returning from the Flat. Beaten only five lengths in the Ascot Stakes and fifth in the handicap at Glorious Goowood.
Doux Pretender, 8.4 on BETDAQ this morning, couldn’t quite manage 3m in Grade 2 but was an improving novice before that little experiment.
It will be a tough test if Cotswold Way does his usual charge (again and again): he led three times in the last leg of his hat-trick.
A good horse called Stoney Mountain (who runs against Rockpoint in the 2.25 at Warwick) won three times, wrapped around his narrow defeat by Doux Pretender in a class 2 which is a couple of grades above the level of most in this field.
But he’ll be hard pressed to give 7lb to the 5.0 favourite Kloud Gate, who has that touch of class from the Flat.
MAD IF YOU MISS BETDAQ 10.0
3.00 Warwick (Warwick Classic) One For Arthur’s next stop after winning this race was Liverpool when he won the 2017 Grand National.
And one of the classic Classics was when Shotgun Paddy beat Mark Bradstock’s Carruthers (2014) from the Coneygree stable.
Could we see a Step Back in time for Bradstock by this winner of the Sandown Gold Cup in April, which was bang on today’s trip?
Off a stone higher mark, he has to prove that it wasn’t the one off that his form suggested but he was gambled on that day so it was no surprise to connections, which is very much in the Coneygree mould.
Milansbar won this in the mud last year, beating Cogry.
The runner-up has his ground now and, though he’s become a Cheltenham specialist, won here at Warwick over 3m 2f as a novice four years ago.
Ibis Du Rheu (BETDAQ 8.8) is also a Cheltenham specialist and he is untried this far but he should have won on the last day (jockey errors judging the pace).
Year on year, Nigel Twiston-Davies produces a new young stayer, and here is Calett Mad, runner-up on the last day in the Scottish Borders National (4m).
He has had a similar rating now for two years, suggesting consistent but not classy; Impulsive Star is similarly stuck in a groove. The difference is that Calett Mad (BETDAQ 10.0 offers) is still only seven and could take that leap forward any time now.
When Crosspark won 16 lengths (3m 2f) at Uttoxeter in November, Harry Skelton, his jockey for the first time, reckoned him such a good jumper and so well handicapped that he could win one of the marathons like today’s.
Harry has won on him again since and Crosspark, who might have finished second in front of Cogry but for a mistake two out last year, is my idea of the best outsider at massive 22.0 offers on BETDAQ this morning.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.0 Fairyhouse (win 10)
BET 2.75pts win GARDENS OF BABYLON
2.05 Kempton (supernap)
BET 20pts win CHARBEL
(also 20pts win as Fortune Cookie)
2.25 Warwick (win 20)
BET 6pts win STONEY MOUNTAIN
(saver to Fortune Cookie ROCKPOINT)
2.40 Kempton (win 20 and win 30)
BET 5pts win KLOUD GATE
BET 4pts win DOUX PRETENDER
3.00 Warwick (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BETS
BET 6.5pts win IBIS DU RHEU
BET 5.6pts win CALETT MAD
BET 2.25pts win and place CROSSPARK
3.35 Warwick (win 30)
BET 5pts win FIRST ASSIGNMENT
DAQ MULTIPLES
3 x 3pt win doubles; 1pt win treble
CHAPARRAL PRINCE (12.20 Kempton)
CHARBEL (2.05 Kempton)
FIRST ASSIGNMENT (3.35 Warwick)
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