DOUBLE BONUS 16.0 NATIONAL GAMBLE: Daqman leads Racing Post tipster Pricewise 9-0 since the start of the Flat (and 48-12 overall) in their corresponding tipping races and now dares to lay against him as well as picking a double-bonus 16.0 outsider on BETDAQ in the Scottish National.
SPRING CUP FOR THE ENOBLED TRAINER: The handicap snip of the century. A Champion Hurdle hope with too much weight. More transformations from the enobled king of improving horses, Sir Michael Stoute, in the John Porter and the Spring Cup. That’s how Daqman sees today’s racing.
1.50 Newbury (John Porter Stakes) In three years out of four, the winner would need the level of rating of Noble Mission to win this. He’s top on 111 but has won only one five-runner affair since July 2012.
And it’s possible that a four-year-old has improved the necessary few pounds over the winter, which is why winners up to 12-1 and 11-1 have bowled out all bar one favourite since 2007.
One of the surprises was Harbinger, an amazing price in hindsight at 11-2. We didn’t know he would go on to win the King George for master trainer Sir Michael Stoute, whose recent form in this race is 1010.
His Galileo filly, Astonishing (5.2 on BETDAQ as I write), has not finished out of the first three since her introduction and looked a potential star when scoring seven lengths at Newmarket in September.
She takes on a colt of great promise in Mutashaded but he has not been seen since June and the stable is missing strike badly with a string of horses placed without winning – 344404333330 – including three beaten favourites.
Astonishing will be looking for a good pace, and should get it: Cocktail Queen, Nearly Caught and Pether’s Moon have all front-run in their time.
2.20 Newbury (Fred Darling Stakes) Third, sixth, eighth and ninth are the best results in the decade for Fred Darling winners going on to the 1,000 Guineas.
2.55 Newbury (Greenham Stakes) This is a much more successful trial, with Frankel (2011), of course, the biggest star to emerge.
Today features Gimcrack and Middle Park winner Astaire, Chesham and Royal Lodge scorer Berkshire, plus Kingman (Solario), Night Of Thunder and a big winter whisper, Lat Hawill.
If you fancy predicting the 2,000 Guineas winner before today’s test, you could get Kingman at 7.4 on BETDAQ this morning, Night Of Thunder 10.5, Berkshire 17.0, Lat Hawill 23.0, Astaire 45.0
2.40 Ayr (Scottish Champion Hurdle) The first-time-hooded My Tent Or Yours – second in the Cheltenham championship – has to give 16lb and more all round in this limited handicap.
Weight-carrying is rarely achieved. Blowing Wind won a four-horse affair in 1998 but, in fact, it’s 18 years since the Cheltenham runner-up, Alderbrook, managed to beat lightly-weighted rivals in a normal-sized field.
Only Raya Star has since won this from the 11st-plus range in the last decade and that was because there was nothing much below him at the weights.
The improvers likely to confuse the handicapper are five-year-olds Flaxen Flare and Cockney Sparrow, and the six-year-old, Clever Cookie.
However, the form of Montbazon’s County Hurdle third (Flaxen Flare fifth) has been boosted by the winner doing the double at Aintree.
Strictly on Fighting Fifth form at Newcastle in November, Cockney Sparrow gets 13lb to make up three lengths on My Tent Or Yours and Cotton Mill 20lb for six-and-a-half lengths.
That’s how hard it is for the favourite, and I dived into the green this morning, laying him at 2.28, and backing Montbazon at 7.6.
3.30 Newbury Spring Cup Four-year-olds are 12 out of 16 since 1997. Four of the last five winners had already started off, in the Spring Mile or the Lincoln.
That’s a plus for Gabrial’s Kaka, who was a big punt on Lincoln day but was weaker on BETDAQ this morning, maybe because he looked at Doncaster as though he needs the ground to dry out. Watch the market.
We are also looking for stable confidence in So Beloved, gelded now and with Oisin Murphy booked. All the Roger Charlton horses under 5-1 in the last fortnight have finished in the frame.
The Lincoln winner, Ocean Tempest, has put a sequence of wins together before now, but none were off today’s high mark and it is doubtful he can make all again.
My Lincoln bet was One Word More, withdrawn after becoming unruly in the stalls and in gate eight today. The ‘sod’s law of punting’ (the day you drop a horse, it wins) means I had to ‘leave a pound’ on him at 16.0. But I’m looking elsewhere for the winner.
The Stoute bottomweight, Enobled (13.5 on BETDAQ), won first time up last season and is 13lb better off with the winner of his last start, Brownsea Brink (had a run), and another Stoute transformation is possibility
Sir Michael won the Lockinge on today’s course first time up with Peeress, the dam of Enobled, and also improved her daughter, Ladyship, to Listed level.
Bronze Angel (blinkered first time) and Foxtrot Romeo have run in better company but stalls 1-14 have filled 18 of the 24 places in six years.
3.50 Ayr (Scottish Grand National): See Daqman’s ABC Guide on Thursday in the Archive.
A neck behind Aintree hero Pineau De Re, giving him 4lb. Joint top-rated. And 22lb well in with Tidal Bay on Graded form. How’s that for a Scottish Grand National horse? Tell me more, you say.
Well, it’s 17 months on, but this animal, Trustan Times, even beat Holywell – double hero of Cheltenham and Aintree – giving that one 12lb, with the 2012 Grand National runner-up, Sunnyhillboy, only fifth, some 23 lengths back, receiving 7lb.
Just one snag with my handicap snip of the century. All the form I have recounted was over hurdles, and he’s run in only one chase recently and been beaten. You have to decide:
Is this a training coup, to engineer running a classy hurdler off – just a pound short of – a stone lower chase mark?
When I remind you that the trainer is Tim Easterby (Run Ructions Run and Hawk High), you may well mutter: ‘Yorkshire shrewdie’ and ‘Takes after Uncle Mick.’
Trustan Times (16.0 on BETDAQ this morning but only a 10-1 shot in my pricing up) was placed in the Long Walk Hurdle and the Rendlesham and his big win over Holywell and Sunnyhillboy was over the tough fixed-brush hurdles at Haydock Park.
His novice-chase form before that was 1233, achieving a rating of only 134 over fences, but he’s a 147 hurdler since that narrow defeat in the Pertemps Final at Cheltenham in March, when he finished alongside Pineau De Re.
Four of the last seven winners of this Scottish National led by halfway and, with this featherweight, I expect Trustan Times to make just such an early charge.
Mister Marker (needs soft), Roalco De Farges and Sam Winner are also likely to take the field on at a mid-race stage. ‘Roalco’ is only 6lb better with Tidal Bay for a 15-length defeat in the Sandown Gold Cup but that was two years ago when he was just seven years old and Tidal Bay was in his heyday.
Rigadin De Beauchene, Mendip Express and Roalco De Farges have all shot up the handicap. Sam Winner is only seven right now.
But he is the Paul Nicholls selected, as stablemate Tidal Bay compresses the handicap to just 11 horses with the rest of the field forced to carry overweight.
Very few in this have done anything like the four-mile trip. Exceptions are Midlands National runner-up Alpha Victor, Durham National winner Lackamon and, of course, last year’s winner, Godsmejudge. Though he’s been out of form recently, ‘’God’ actually carries 12lb less than last year because of the Tidal Bay phenomenon.
Hadrian’s Approach and Merry King, fifth in both Hennessy and Welsh National, are not fully exposed: ‘Hadrian’, the 2012 RSA third, was much shorter in the Hennessy market than his winning stablemate Triolo D’Alene but unseated rider.
Tidal Bay didn’t get far enough in the National to blow his chances in this but the last 22 to come on from Aintree to the Scottish equivalent have managed only one place.
Nuts N Bolts, who pulled up after injuring himself at the third, when joint second favourite last year, has been saved for the race all season, and is ridden by the winningmost lady rider in any jumps season, Lucy Alexander.
But ‘Nuts’ trainer, Lucinda Russell, has two others, with Peter Buchanan presumably choosing Green Flag and a claimer is up on Lie Forrit.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: My three against the field are Trustan Times (backed for a double bonus at 16.0), Sam Winner (14.0) and Nuts N Bolts (24.0).
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 30 points, except double-bonus bets, where Daqman backs the horse, win 30, at the price he thinks it should be).
LAY 5pts MUTASHADED and BET 7pts win (nap) ASTONISHING (1.50 Newbury)
LAY 10pts MY TENT OR YOURS and BET 4.5pts win MONTBAZON (2.40 Ayr)
BET 2.4pts win ENOBLED and 2pts win ONE WORD MORE (3.30 Newbury)
DOUBLE-BONUS BET: 3pts win and place TRUSTAN TIMES at 16.0 plus, to win 30, BET: 2.3pts win SAM WINNER and 1.3pts win and place NUTS N BOLTS (3.50 Ayr)
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