BIG, BIG VALUE ON BETDAQ AT 20.0? DEFNIGHTLY SAYS DAQMAN: Stakes are raised today to win 30 points a race at Doncaster as Daqman goes on a recouping mission after a luckless Ladbrokes St Leger meeting so far. His forecast gamble today is Defnightly, 20.0 this morning in the Portland.
HE LEADS WITH THE NAP IN THE LEGER: He’s napping in the Leger itself. He surmises that the soft ground picks out one of three 6.0 co-favourites on BETDAQ at the time he was writing and, with the Leger list in the orange a super-friendly 101%, he expects Leading Light to win.
Even by its own high standards, BETDAQ is big value on Leger day. I was checking out prices milkman-early this morning, and before 7 a.m., I could cream off the best offers in a race in which the runners totted up to as low as 104%. So don’t lose your bottle!
The Portman was 111% at that time. Compare that with the Total SP for that race in the last three seasons: 132, 135 and 137%, bookmaker take-outs which grab a third of your winnings!
In my case, that’s not a lot this week.. I’ve had a bad Doncaster. I went 222 yesterday before I made a winning strike and the horses I’ve tipped as gambles have happened in the ring two days running but not on the track: Fairway To Heaven (2nd 9-2 from 10-1) and Shropshire (4th 13-2), the pair of them added together beaten less than two lengths. My tilt at the layers today is Defnightly (20.0) but let’s begin at the beginning..
2.05 Doncaster (Champagne Stakes) Anjaal would make it a hat-trick for the Hannons in this race, following straight on from Toronado, one of the stars of the current season and the best winner of this since Lear Fan 30 years ago.
So your second mistake with the bookies in one day would be taking the odds about the winner of this for next year’s 2,000 Guineas. The stats say it’s Champagne today but shampoo tomorrow, unless the winner is a Toronado (and even he flopped in the Guineas).
You’re normally looking for a colt that’s already done good in the pattern, but not that good, placed at Listed or Group-3 level without picking up a penalty.
Not since Poets Voice (2007) has the winner come to this off anything higher than 103 or 104, but Cable Bay has 108 and Anjaal 107, while Outstrip might be worth 108 or 109 for finishing in front of Parbold in the Vintage Stakes at Goodwood.
The winner of that was another Hannon, Toormore, so the East Everleigh selected could be very hard to beat this afternoon, depending – I’m sick of saying it this week – on the ground.
The get of Anjaal’s sire have won 131 races with ‘soft’ in the going return, of Cable Bay’s 152, Outstrip’s 74, but this idea raises further question-marks, since the more youthful stallions responsible for The Grey Gatsby and Treaty Of Paris don’t yet have enough progeny for a fair comparison.
Anjaal had the Gimcrack and Molecomb Stakes winners behind him when winning the July Stakes but has that dreaded penalty (no success in this in 10 years).
The winners of the Acomb Stakes (Treaty of Paris from The Great Gatsby) have a poor record, so it has to be Outstrip, as a winner already at 7f (stat: 9 out of 10) and already proven with cut in the ground. Saver Anjaal.
2.40 Doncaster (Portland Handicap) Five-year-olds have won this every year since before the banks crashed and your personal betting bank would have crashed long ago, had you backed the fancied horses: 20-1 (three times), 14-1 (three times), 11-1 (three times); those are the triple triple hits for Portland outsiders since 2003, with just one winning favourite (at 4-1) in the decade.
Take out Defnightly and today’s handicap has just a 6lb range top to bottom. They’re all set to finish in a line, separated by trainer ability, jockey’s nous, the draw and (I must say it again) the going.
Ted Powell (Ajjaadd), Mick Easterby (Ancient Cross), P J O’Gorman (Monsieur Chevalier) and Ron Harris (Secret Witness and Prodigality) are out of form. In top gear are David Barron (Magical Macey), Roger Varian (Steps), Tim Easterby (Confessional, runner-up in 2011), Brian Ellison (Racy) and David Simcock (Our Jonathan)
The draw bias is just that: a bias of seemingly powerful proportions. In the six renewals since drainage work on Town Moor, stalls 15 to 21 have won five out of six, and high numbers have done well already this week.
Among those so installed today who are winners with cut in the ground, Racy (drawn 17 and with Ryan Moore booked) is 13lb better in with Steps on old form.
Doc Hay, last year’s winner in stall 21, is only 3lb higher and comes out of gate 16. Hello Mister (1994-5) and Halmahera (2002-3-4) are multiple winners in recent years, so it can be done.
Elusivity (20) is 6lb lower than for his Ascot win on the soft in July 2012 but hasn’t scored since. However, this is a rare handicap for him as a pattern-race performer (fourth in a Group 2 in June) and he’s 4lb lower than for a decent run in the Wokingham.
Inxile (19) is another performer in the pattern but trainer David Nicholls has lost his touch this season and Inxile is eight now. Magical Macey (stall 18), winner of the Gosforth Park Cup, had a prep run at Doncaster on Wednesday.
That takes us back to Defnightly (in 15) at the top of the handicap. He’s a Group-3 winner this season on heavy ground and the more rain the better for him.
I’m taking a touch of class combined with the ground and a stands-rail draw: Defnightly (20.0 on BETDAQ as I write and laid out for this by Mr Shrewdie, Roger Charlton), plus Elusivity (14.0) and Doc Hay (10.0), both for the local man, David O’Meara.
3.15 Doncaster (Park Stakes) You need Group winners (7/10) for this, so Pintura, Sirius Prospect and Sovereign Debt seem up against it, while Aljamaaheer has always liked better ground.
Pastoral Player performs on soft but has never won on going worse than good. Arnold Lane’s Group-3 win in Munich would normally be Listed or lower in this country (sure enough, he’s a class-2 winner at Chester).
It’s hard to look beyond Gregorian, who already this season has beaten Red Jazz, Pastoral Player, Pintura and Caspar Netscher (so holds Lockwood on collateral lines through Boom And Bust), and it’s a fair bet he’ll turn round the half-length Aljamaaheer beat him at Ascot on today’s easier surface.
Johnny Murtagh wants to get some black type for Belle De Cressy (3.35 The Curragh), so misses the mount on Viztoria here, but his words –‘very impressive’ – are in back of my mind for this sole three-year-old runner, who loves plenty of give in the ground.
Thanks to 105% list in the orange as I write, I can back both Gregorian and Viztoria. If there’s a lot of rain, Viztoria could wing it.
3.50 Doncaster (St Leger) My ABC Guide recommended a lightly-raced sort, with good form in the Gordon Stakes or Great Voltigeur, trained by Saeed Bin Suroor, John Gosden or Aidan O’Brien.
That, after the knock-outs, suggests a 1-2-3 of Excess Knowledge, Secret Number and Leading Light.
Alone among the three-year-olds, Galileo Rock has been the great survivor of Classics and Classic trials in which the form hasn’t lasted much beyond the race itself – Ruler Of The World, Sugar Boy, Libertarian – and we’ve always known that he was bred for a Gold Cup and would come into his own over a distance of ground, but preferably on a sound surface.
That BETDAQ shows 6.0 each of three, as I write – yet with the field adding up to only 101% overall – suggests just how close this Leger could be.
We know for certain that Leading Light (2m Queens Vase winner) and Galileo Rock will stay but we have a clear indication that Excess Knowledge is right there with them, since his stablemate, Feel Like Dancing, who defects from the field, ran up to Leading Light at Royal Ascot and his trainer, John Gosden, has won this three times since 2007.
However, Gosden is on record as fearing soft ground for Excess Knowledge, and connections of Galileo Rock walked the course this morning, worried about the going. They found it good to soft, soft in places, though decided to run (‘not as bad as we thought’).
But, surely, the 6.0 Excess Knowledge and Galileo Rock are wrong because of the ground and the 6.0 Leading Light is, therefore, value.
The thing I like about Leading Light is how lazy and laid-back he is at home. He fooled them at Ballydoyle. Might have been their big contender all season but just never showed enough on the gallops. He saves it for the track.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 30 points)
BET 12pts win OUTSTRIP and 3pts win (stakes saver) ANJAAL (2.05 Doncaster)
BET 3.3pts win DOC HAY, 2.3pts win ELUSIVITY and 1.5pts win DEFNIGHTLY (2.40 Doncaster)
BET 8pts win GREGORIAN and 6.25 win VIZTORIA (3.15 Doncaster)
BET 6pts win (nap) LEADING LIGHT (3.50 Doncaster). Loss 2.5pts ante-post Brass Ring, Feel Like Dancing.
BET 6.25pts win GREATWOOD (4.25 Doncaster)
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