A FINE WINNER SAVES THE DAY: Daqman saw his punt on She’s A Saint crash from 2.3 on BETDAQ to 8-11 favourite yesterday, releasing 4-1 and better about the winner, Credrojava. Keep your eye on the BETDAQ market and give yourself more than one play if the offers are so volatile.
WON 3-1 FINE CASTING
10-1 NAP ON NEW YEAR’S EVE: It’s the last day of the year and Daqman punts for a nap at 11.0 and hopes to see turn-ups for 9.9, 15.5 (twice) and 17.0 BETDAQ offers. Headlines:
RACING’S AMATEUR THEATRICALS
DOWN TO EARTH IN THIS COMPANY
ADARE YOU TO GET ON A FRY MOVE
TRY AN 11.0 BRUSH WITH FOXBORO
BETDAQ 15.5 IS MOR THAN ENOUGH
RACING’S AMATEUR THEATRICALS
They’re all boys together. So, with bonhomie and badinage, ITV Racing bumps and bounces along, with the mood set by its sponsor’s ads: talking horses exchanging banalities, sometimes scatological, in their stable.
But, however much ITV may think that lowering the tone lures viewers, the real laughs come when the production is as inept and cringeworthy as moments in the Christmas week special of daily meetings from England and Ireland.
❌ BLOOMER: When Home By The Lee won, the ensuing interview with the trainer was captioned ’Joseph O’Brian.’
❌ BLOOMER: Later on, the commentator argued with the screen presentation of the furlong-by-furlong sectional ‘speedometer’, which read: ‘three fences to go.’
‘No, no, they’re coming up to the last fence, I assure you,’ he declared.
❌ BLOOMER: Matt Chapman was linked in but said he’d forgotten what he was going to do.
A flustered Chapman shuffled his papers Boris Johnson style and I thought that any moment he would deflect with the magic words: ‘Peppa Pig.’
❌ BLOOMER: Andrew Thornton wanted to show us the awkward way one of the runners-up jumped; why it had lost the race.
Instead he had to talk over a reprise dedicated to the winning grey. As we were told how he screwed his fences, he was jumping like a stag, home for all money.
In fact, whenever a professional view is sought – from Richard Hoiles or Ruby Walsh – they tend to talk quickly and sign off before some inane comment spoils the content.
Maybe there really is something in the boast that Ed Chamberlin is the glue (or should that be ‘goo’) that holds the presentation together.
He wasn’t in charge that day of the continual bloomers and cohesion was badly needed in an amateurish production. Plenty of goo but nothing slick.
The beady-eyed shy boy Oli Bell and the well-used sticking-plaster of smiles and jests could not hold things together.
DOWN TO EARTH IN THIS COMPANY
⭕ 1.15 Newbury (Hallowe’en Trophy) It’s a seasonal title but reminds old-timers of Halloween, first horse to win two renewals of the King George, trained Bill Wightman and ridden Fred Winter.
LAYS LOGIC: You have to back morning-favourite Gamaret on potential, though there’s very little encouragement in his pedigree and he’s been absent 327 days since winning an ordinary hurdle race.
But the opposition today seems weak: CD winners Gallic George and Not Available have very little else to recommend them.
FORM: Only Money has solid form: 21311132 in the last year, all over fences but with no improvement in his rating the last twice.
Both Earth Company (BETDAQ 15.5) and File Illico (17.0) ran stinkers first run back but you get the feeling that one or both might bounce back here for trainers in form.
ADARE YOU TO GET ON A FRY MOVE
⭕ 1.50 Newbury File Illico’s yard has another one here, Soaring Glory, who ran badly – blundered and beaten favourite – first run back, but that’s a bigger worry because he usually wins after a break.
Black Poppy, another beaten favourite on his reappearance, was winner and second back to back at Newbury in the Spring.
Pikar was taken off his feet early at 100-1 when asked to tackle Jonbon over two miles in January.
He went clear at Chepstow, five lengths up at the line over a subsequent easy winner, on his reappearance in October, but is now up in trip.
Harry Fry got it absolutely spot on with Credrojava yesterday, dropping her nearly a mile.
She was blessed with a power run from the front by She’s A Saint that had them more than 10 lengths ahead at the line, Both winner and second are begging to be followed.
Now Fry raises another mare, Lady Adare, by nearly two furlongs, after already stepping her up from a 2m victory in January to a 16-lengths rout of the opposition at Taunton the following month.
Fry’s winners are no flash in the pan: the market tells you there is a power play: his runners backed down to 4-1 SP or less in the last 10 days have finished 113211.
Blenkinsop has landed a hat-trick two grades lower, and the last hit in an overall 19lb hike may have stopped him.
Betdaq Betting Exchange 9.7 Black Poppy, 9.9 Lady Adare
TRY AN 11.0 BRUSH WITH FOXBORO
⭕ 2.25 Newbury (Mandarin Chase) Like Halloween, Mandarin, the 1962 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, was also ridden by Fred Winter but was from the Mill House stable of the previous year, Fulke Walwyn’s.
I fancy Foxboro; he’s never been out of the first four after a November run back, scoring in style at Sandown and Fontwell. There’s hardly any movement in his rating but it may be enough to hold his form again.
Seamus Mullins is currently out of form but I shall keep an eye on four-in a-row Moroder on his first run for 284 days.
Killer Kane beat Valsheda at Kempton in February, and both won again in March and have the benefit of a recent race.
Certainly Red was left clear at Wincanton but looked improved and aggressive. So, too, Tallow For Coal at Lingfield. Both have been raised just 5lb.
A wind op helped Laskalin score at Ludlow but it’s been tweaked since. Similarly, Shanty Alley’s run of letters (UPP) not figures was stopped by such an op, and he’s also had a second one.
BETDAQ value 11.0 Foxboro
BETDAQ 15.5 IS MOR THAN ENOUGH
⭕ 3.00 Newbury (Challow Hurdle) The recent Challow results read like this week’s who’s-who of Christmas stars; in the last four years, Champ, Thyme Hill, Bravemansgame and Strage Star.
We have a FORTUNE COOKIE here in Hermes Allen, who would give Paul Nicholls a hat-trick in the race.
‘We run our best novice in the Challow,’ says Nicholls. No arguing with that after – lazy at home – Hermes Allen romped away with his Stratford debut 27 lengths and followed up less than a month later with a Grade 2 at Cheltenham.
Similarly, Dan Skelton couldn’t see it in Vicki Vale at home – she’s a Westerner – but she was ‘very, very good’ in disposing of 15 others by 17 lengths at Hereford.
Gordon Elliott, who has 11 runners at Punchestown today, sends Kansas City Star over to Newbury. It was his Music Drive that ran second to Hermes Allen that day at Cheltenham.
Kansas City Star is following his Fairyhouse conqueror to Newbury. That’s Joyeux Machin, which the Racing Post ratings insist is only two points behind Hermes Allen.
Fergal O’Brien has trained 101 winners this season and when Crambo won at Ascot it took a while to pull him up.
Thomas Mor could also be ‘anything’. Son of Dylan Thomas out of an Old Vic mare, he ran 57 lengths clear at Wincanton.
This race looks deep! Hermes Allen is, therefore, no price. I’ll leave him to punch his weight for Fortune Cookies followers and try to land a blow with a couple of haymakers: Crambo at 9.9. and Thomas Mor at 15.5.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.15 Newbury (win 20)
BET 1.3pts win EARTH COMPANY
BET 1.25pts win FINE ILLICO
1.50 Newbury (win 50 bull’s-eye bets)
BET 5.75pts win BLACK POPPY
BET 5.75pts win LADY ADARE
2.25 Newbury (win 30, nap)
BET 3pts win FOXBORO
3.00 Newbury
FORTUNE COOKIE
BET 20pts win HERMES ALLEN
LONG-SHOTS
BET 2.25pts win CRAMBO
BET 1.37pts win THOMAS MOR
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