NEWBURY BANKER AFTER 6-4 NAP: Daqman played to the gallery yesterday, with another winning nap, Minstrels Gallery (WON 6-4), and his next best, Josses Hill (WON 10-11) also scored. Today’s nap is a banker at Newbury.
DAQMAN LEADS PRICEWISE 25-10: Pricewise got some back last weekend in the value challenge, in which Daqman still leads 25-10 (overall 271-106). They battle today in the 1.50 and 3.35 Newbury. Daqman’s top bets stand at:
Bankers: 8 out of 10
Lays: 6 out of 7
Daqman 25, Pricewise 10
HEREWEGO! KING HIGH FOR THE OPENER
1.20 Newbury: Four favourites out of six have won this, and it’s a total of five from seven between Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson, suggesting another old-firm battle here via Emerging Talent and Argante.
But this Talent looks less Emerging, more exposed, albeit better for a palate op, and the hurdles maiden Argante was too easy to back this morning at 12.0 on BETDAQ, with Herewgo Herewego (6.2) best fancied of the newcomers.
Since Alan King, who could have a great day today, won two similar races with a first-timer this season, It could be a case of Herewego again!
1.50 Newbury I wanted to swerve this class 3 posing as a class 2 but Pricewise thinks it worth his bookies money.
Argocat was a Graded player at one stage – placed behind Silviniaco Conti and Felix Yonger – and he is a mud-lover.
His glass-horse profile suggests that Nicky Henderson has no choice but to stoke him up for a one-off, and this could be it: 8.0 says it’s worth a stab on BETDAQ.
‘ROCKY’ ROAD TO THE GRAND NATIONAL
2.25 Newbury (Denman Chase) Hopes of a late twist to the Gold Cup betting seem more like a twist of lemon in a gin-trap of veterans here.
Cheltenham heroes Kauto Star, Denman, Long Run and Coneygree have all won it in the decade at aged seven or eight but the nearest to a young pretender here is the visored Splash of Ginge, who has failed to provide even a drop of tonic for his supporters in the past year, unable to finish the course four times out of seven.
Surely it will be a serious setback to the Ditcheat resurgence if Grand National outsider Rocky Creek can’t cope with Houblon des Obeaux (prefers a sounder surface) and Ballynagour (Pipe yard continues on the slide).
He may have most to fear from front-running old favourite The Giant Bolster (15.0 on BETDAQ), with this race, though labelled as such, no way the class of his two starts in which Smad Place emerged as a serious Gold Cup contender.
BULLETS BANKER WITH CHAMPION TARGET
3.00 Newbury (Game Spirit Chase) A race made famous by Paul Nicholls’ Master Minded and Nicky Henderson’s effortless success with Sprinter Sacre (2012), both future Champion Chasers.
With Henderson’s hope, L’Ami Serge, taking up his Warwick option, Dodging Bullets is a banker to return to his own Champion Chase best of a year ago, after he’d vanquished Sprinter Sacre in the Clarence House.
Even with his main rival out, if this had been run a month earlier, with Ditcheat hounds as quiet as the dog that didn’t bark in the night, you wouldn’t have bet an old penny that he would.
But P Nicholls is today sporting recent-form figures of 1221131, resurrecting hopes that he can stave off the challenges of Philip Hobbs and Willie Mullins for his trainers’ crown.
It’s money won at Cheltenham not winners scored that will decide the title and ‘Bullets’ is one of the big guns for Nicholls in an otherwise low-calibre festival for him in March, which has him admitting: ‘This season is all about my youngsters for next year.’
GO TO WAR ON A SOUND BIG-RACE CHANCE
3.35 Newbury (BF Hurdle) Not many horses have been been aimed at this race since last summer; not many have won a similar high-class handicap. Not many love the heavy ground. Not many are with a stable that’s won 10 quality handicaps since the autumn.
But War Sound is all of those and more: a strong chasing sort, who goes well fresh, claimed off by his big-race-winning rider, which brings him within the weights parameter of past results in my yesterday’s ABC Guide.
I wish I could say I found him. But the world and his wife is talking about him, specifically whether his claimer, Ciaran Gethings, can keep his nerve. But I’ve been more concerned that I keep my own nerve.
You see ‘the crowd by definition cannot get rich’ (quote unquote Horse Sense), largely because popularity means the value has gone.
I shall back War Sound but I shall also have to look for something to beat him, perhaps among the six other Grade-1 entries in the race, assuming their class, and that class will out, despite the mud.
Sternrubin, his stablemate is the obvious one, but that again suggests loss of value, and he’s a stone higher than for the first of his back-to-back wins, each pound counting dead-weight in these conditions.
The winner of The Ladbroke has never gone on to victory here, and the sixth horse home, Zarib, is better off at the weights today and has his conditions.
Yet another Hobbs contender is last year’s runner-up, Cheltenian, 12lb higher now and not claimed off, which suggests that he’s been keeping the weight down for the first pair.
Cheltenian is not among Grade-1 entries, nor is Blazer, another talking horse, because trained by the maestro Mullins to win well just seven days ago.
But that race equates to a couple of grades below today’s event, and the placed horses were both maidens. His new rating of 138 is an attempt at a handicapping demolition job, based on fear, since his performance, relative to the second and third, is strictly worth only about today’s mark, which takes in a nominal 5lb rise.
Did last week’s win leave today’s race behind or enhance his chances? Barry Geraghty obviously thinks he’s the one and he certainly appeared to cruise the race.
The snag with all the theory is that Blazer is one of 12 five-year-olds in the race, and he and any one of the others could be improving at the proverbial rate of knots. Five novices have won this in the last seven years.
And presumably Geraghty thinks Blazer better at the weights than Kalkir and Buiseness Sivola, who are just about equals at a Grade-1 level on a line through Petite Parisienne.
There are also four six-year-olds (it’s 12 years since an older horse won it), of which Cheltenham Champion Bumper runner-up Modus is also strongly fancied in the market, with his trainer, Paul Nicholls, seemingly back on an upward curve.
He’s another novice, given a break since he got stuck in the mud at Taunton in December, when given a hefty 139 mark.
Like Zarib, Affaire d’Honneur could emerge from the stronger pace of this race. He’s been staying on, not punished, and loves the mud. His form on the classy Enghien track was a cut above Blazer’s French Provinces success in Bordeaux.
DAQMAN’S ORDER IN; Apparently Pricewise needs four chances today (I don’t look at him until I’ve posted my column). I’ll have three bets and take the favourite as saver, because he’s too short (until he wins a street!)
1 War Sound (12.0 on BETDAQ this morning)
2 Affaire D’Honneur (10.0)
3 Blazer (saver at 5.6)
4 Zarib (19.5)
ACCA SERGE TO YOUR DAQ MULTIPLES..
2.05 Warwick Petite Parisienne (hooded first time), who gives us Graded-race lines to the BF Hurdle at Newbury, is a tasty 4.7, as Willie Mullins disperses some of his raiding party to Warwick.
2.40 Warwick L’Ami Serge was always going to duck the Newbury clash with Dodging Bullets, leaving them both as hubs for our Daq Multiples.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 20 points unless stated)
BET 4pts win HEREWEGO HEREWEGO (1.20 Newbury)
BET 2.8pts win ARGOCAT (1.50 Newbury)
BET 5.4pts win PETITE PARISIENNE (2.05 Warwick)
BET 10pts win ROCKY CREEK, and 1pt win and place THE GIANT BOLSTER (2.25 Newbury)
BANKER: BET 20pts win (nap) DODGING BULLETS (3.00 Newbury)
BULL’S-EYE BETS (to win 50): 5.5pts win AFFAIRE D’HONNEUR, 4.5pts win WAR SOUND, 2.7pts win ZARIB and 2.7pts win (stakes saver) BLAZER (3.35 Newbury
DAQ MULTIPLES: 4 x 1pt win trebles and 1pt win acca Emerging Talent (1.20 Newbury), Petite Parisienne (2.05 Warwick), L’Ami Serge (2.40 Warwick), Dodging Bullets (3.00 Newbury)
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