DAQMAN’S 5-DAY FESTIVAL SERVICE: It’s a day to follow Willie Mullins’ Dublin Racing Festival runners race by race in the BETDAQ market, staking to your own fixed-profit yield. This is how Daqman spread his stats and form facts to give you full insight (check out the Archive):
Wednesday: Irish Gold Cup form and ratings
Thursday: Irish Champion Hurdle form and ratings
Yesterday: Long And Short Of Mullins Magic Weekend
Today and tomorrow: Daqman’s Dublin Racing Festival bets
ONE IN THE ARKLE WE’VE WAITED FOR: Somewhere there’s a race Willie won’t win! It’s not the Gold Cup, for which he is acey-deucy with Daqman. But it could be the Irish Arkle, where there’s one we’ve been waiting for.
Headlines:
BRIDGE WAS ‘HUGELY EXCITING’
DOLOS CAN LAND HIS OWN RACE
COLOMBE CAT AMONG PIGEONS
GO BY THE BOOK: BETDAQ 8.5
DAQMAN’S BETS with FORTUNE COOKIES
BRIDGE WAS ‘HUGELY EXCITING’
⭕ 2.30 Leopardstown (Irish Arkle) As I implied on Friday, if you can’t win money on Willie Mullins at the Dublin Festival, you shouldn’t be betting on horses. I suggested backing his runners in a staking sequence.
But those who are not getting a fair shake from their psychiatrist will try laying some of the hotter ones or backing something to beat them.
The Supreme Novice winner Appreciate It will be in your sequential Mullins staking plan but, before that one even appreciated to a winning chaser, I had Banbridge in my FORTUNE COOKIES list on the strength of back-to-back wins at Gowran Park and Cheltenham.
Soft ground at Fairyhouse didn’t seem to suit and I dropped him from the list but with a note to save face if he was ever being ignored for the ‘hugely exciting horse’ his trainer thought of him in the autumn.
He could floor the obvious, which is what gives Joseph Patrick O’Brien his greatest pleasure. He’s kept him back for this and he has his ground.
Betdaq Betting Exchange 8.1 Banbridge
⭕ 3.05 Leopardstown (Irish Gold Cup) I’m forecasting a one-two for Willie Mullins and my FORTUNE COOKIES in the Gold Cup: Galopin Des Champs and Stattler.
Galopin Des Champs is also favourite for the Cheltenham Gold Cup but Mullins has left Stattler in that race, too, with the Ryanair as an alternative.
But my reading of the form is that the 3m 6f National Hunt Chase winner is Grand National bound. BETDAQ 7.3 for today.
DOLOS CAN LAND HIS OWN RACE
⭕ 1.45 Sandown Dolos, who has won this off 149, 157 and 143, and been second on unwelcome heavy ground off 158, goes for four out of five, dropped down from Grade-3 places behind Greaneteen (Haldon Gold Cup) and Editeur Du Gite (Desert Orchid Chase).
Harry Cobden has done the steering for all three wins in this race, which has been renamed the Dolos Handicap Chase, and he’s back in the saddle today.
Dolos may be shorter off 146 today, but not much shorter, than the 7-2, 4-1 and 10-1 SPs of his three wins in the race; strange how some horses don’t capture the public’s imagination.
They will back a Goshen to 10-11, 11-8, 6-5 and 4-6 (for one win) but snub a Dolos. I hope that continues at least until my money is down today!
Red Rookie is a green rookie; not yet stepped up from novice company. That’s also true of The Widdow Maker and Third Time Lucki.
Frero Banbou, who beat Eclair d’Ainay at Lingfield, is down in the ratings and likes Sandown but I’d rather back him on soft-heavy.
Fast Buck is just 1-9 over fences (on heavy). As a high-class hurdler he also did his best on soft-heavy. His good Lingfield win last time has to be repeated on different ground today.
If it was a solid comeback, they weren’t expecting it. His season’s SP sequence of 66-1, 10-1, 80-1, was continued that day: 20-1.
Of the three at the front of the market, one trailed in 35 lengths behind, another fell. It all reads ‘fluke’ but his times were good and, if you are worried, have a saver.
BETDAQ value 4.4 Dolos
COLOMBE CAT AMONG PIGEONS
⭕ 2.20 Sandown (Scilly Isles Novices Chase) A race that can be turnkey to Cheltenham, with Bristol de Mai and L’Homme Presse previous recent winners.
Gordon Elliott has 12 runners at Leopardstown today but spares the burgeoning claimer Jordan Gainford for one ride at Sandown on Gerri Colombe.
Jordan jumps at the big chances, as revealed by his earnings total of €1.4m.
And Colombe is no pigeon either but the cat among them in this small field today after six straight wins, culminating in the Grade-1 Faugheen Novices at Limerick on Boxing Day.
Balco Coastal’s jumping has improved for being given plenty of daylight but his overall form is 10lb behind the Colombe.
Monmiral also jumped better, despite taking on Jonbon at Warwick in November, and Paul Nicholls has been looking forward to testing him today.
But the Scilly Isles is not a Nicholls race these days (he won it four times in 2006-9) and his other hopeful view was for heavy ground.
Monmiral and Thunder Rock were second and third to The Real Whacker in the Dipper at Cheltenham on the first day of the year.
Thunder Rock it is who has his ground today, with only a head to make up on Monmiral. As for Bowtogreatness? I will when I see it.
BETDAQ value 2.46 Gerri Colombe
GO BY THE BOOK: BETDAQ 8.5
⭕ 2.55 Sandown Now and then I slip a handicapper into the FORTUNE COOKIES list.
And when I said of his Chepstow defeat over Christmas that Green Book could be forgiven his first run since April, I had this race in mind. So did Venetia Williams.
He won it last year with 10st 9lb off a 4lb lower mark, but the race has been demoted from a Grade 3 so he has 12lb more.
But clearly it’s a much lower level and this could be regarded as a smart piece of plotting by Venetia Williams, the woman I love (entirely unrequited but for a chat on Chepstow racecourse one day.)
BETDAQ value 8.5 Green Book
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.45 Sandown (win 12)
BET 3.5pts win DOLOS
2.03 Musselburgh (win 12)
BET 1.5pts win DOYEN BREED
BET 1pt win TIDE TIMES
2.20 Sandown (win 12 nap)
BET 8pts win GERRI COLOMBE
2.30 Leopardstown
Win-50 Bull’s-Eye Bet
BET 7pts win BANBRIDGE
2.55 Sandown
FORTUNE COOKIE
GREEN BOOK
3.05 Leopardstown
FORTUNE COOKIES
GALOPIN DES CHAMPS
STATTLER
3.30 Sandown (win 20)
BET 2pts win RAPPER
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.
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