NUGGET OF GOLD! NOW IT’S FOUR WINNING NAPS UP OUT OF FIVE: Daqman struck gold again yesterday with Nugget (WON 10-11), his fourth winning nap out of five, making eight out of 14 for a 57% strike rate. His only other best bets this week were a second and a non-runner.
✅ WON 2-1 GLOBAL GIANT (Sunday nap)
Monday: non-runner
✅ WON 8-15 PLEASURE GARDENS (Tuesday supernap)
✅ WON 9-4 MILLISLE (Wednesday nap)
Thursday: 2nd 7-2
✅ WON 10-11 NUGGET (Friday nap)
THREE RUN IN THE KING GEORGE: ONE A DERBY WINNER AT 15.0: Daqman takes the three-runner King George none too seriously and ‘does an Aidan O’Brien’, backing two runners out of three, one of them last year’s Irish Derby winner at BETDAQ 15.0! He thinks there’s a ’hidden horse’ being gambled on in the race after the big one, and he naps Elarqam to land back-to-back wins in the York Stakes on the Knavesmire.
ROOKE COULD BE KING ON ESHAASY
⭕ 2.25 Ascot (International Stakes) Winners are aged four and five (8-10); drawn in double figures (9-10) and with a double-figure SP up to 50-1 (7-10). Trainers: Richard Fahey 3, Mark Johnston 2.
Blue Mist is down just a pound on his rating when third last year. Any overnight showers may not worry him, but what worries me is that he’s been beaten favourite in four of his last five starts, and has too many times been tagged ‘unlucky’. Can Ryan Moore make the difference?
The main line to form is also a blue mist for punters, who must decide whether the result of the Buckingham Palace Stakes over this CD will be altered by tweeks in the weights and different stalls positions.
Pacesetter that day, Jack’s Point (2nd off 96 from 22), is now out of stall 11 rated 100; Mutamaasik ran on third (winner in his group) off 100 out of gate 16, now out of 14 rated 102.
Fourth was Cliffs Of Capri, trained by Jamie Osborne who broke the mould and won it with a seven-year-old a year ago.The year younger Cliffs Of Capri has Ascot form of 10134, and is 1lb higher than in the Buckingham Palace (stall 18 now from 27 then).
Shelir, low drawn 6 when fifth, may have been unlucky again, drawn 3. But Ebury, who was sixth, won the lonely far-side group from stall 3, is in 13 now off the same mark.
Gin Palace is on a hat-trick mission but his Newmarket victory at the end of June has been let down badly by the second and third.
Vale Of Kent has a low stall and any showers would not help; he is particularly effective on a firm surface.
Eshaasy is an unexposed three-year-old, claimed off by George Rooke, a young rider with 25 winners this year who can make the weight with a bit to spare.
Consolation Wokingham winner Chief Of Chiefs used to win over a mile, even 1m 2f, but is seven years old now.
So, too, Spanish City who was third in last month’s Wokingham, sixth beaten less than two lengths in this International in 2018.
VERDICT: I took Ebury (BETDAQ 10.5) to emerge from the Buckingham Palace form. It’s a tall order for the three-year-old Eshaasy (8.8), but his underestimated apprentice could take advantage of his featherweight against older handicappers which seem all of a heap.
ELARQAM TAKEN TO DO THE DOUBLE
⭕ 2.40 York Jim Crowley, who has educated Eshaasy from the saddle, couldn’t do the weight to within a stone of George Rooke today!
Here he is at York on a horse he’d badly like to win with. He rode Elarqam in most of last year’s seven starts, and won on him at Sandown, but missed the ride in this York race when Dane O’Neill took over and stuffed the quality favourite, Addeybb, before Jim got back in the plate and ran third here again to Japan in the International last August (King Of Comedy fourth).
Telecaster scored on the last day, after running third when Elarqam just failed to catch the massively improved Lord North at Haydock, and this race is the obvious target after his winning the Dante over the CD last season.
Aspetar seems fragile, needing long breaks between races but last summer won a Group 2 at Chantilly, and could have his day.
ENABLE READY FOR THE HAT-TRICK
⭕ 3.35 Ascot (King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth Stakes) Only three left in a King George disappointing for it’s mini-field but which Aidan O’Brien today calls ‘competitive’. You, the punter, should be the judge.
🏇 SOVEREIGN: Won the 2019 Curragh Derby from the front. So likely to go on, and try to draw the sting out of Enable (whether you want to call this a tactic or not). Can he last out? The 15.0 offers on the BETDAQ Exchange are worth a pound.
🏇 JAPAN: A tracker. Likely to keep within a length or two of Enable, wherever she is, and gets high praise from O’Brien for his recent work. ‘We’ve always had this race in mind.’
🏇 ENABLE: Can she be restrained and then cut down Sovereign, still with the old finish left? John Gosden says that her preparation for a third King George has been perfect, since she was beaten in the Coral-Eclipse when short of her best.
The tragedy of today’s King George in a truncated 2020 season is not only its poor turnout and domination by one stable, win or lose, but that the absence of three-year-olds gifts the battle of the generations to France in the Arc.
FIRST REAL CHANCE FOR MASCAT
⭕ 4.10 Ascot Western Duke won this last year but it was a small island of comfort in a sea of 19 defeats since September, 2017. The placed horses were from lower grade with their own losing streaks at the time.
Frontispiece will show them the way. He’s won here over shorter and scored over further in a double at his favourite track, Newbury.
If a younger horse gets after him it could be Look Closely, unexposed after just five starts; delete two first runs of the season, and he’s 321, scoring at Leicester under today’s rider, Andrea Atzeni.
The visor has helped Mankayan get back on track and he beat a big field at Doncaster, though he’s not one I could bank on for back-to-back success.
The two three-year-olds, Media Storm and Mascat, look dangerous. Muscat may be a hidden horse in this company, and was being backed this morning: I took 6.9 on BETDAQ.
He landed a gamble at Newmarket last backend, was pitched into a Group 3 at Royal Ascot on his return, then didn’t like the soft ground when fourth on the last day.
That was a tough little handicap on the July Course. Winner and runner-up had both won their previous race, and the third horse, fifth in the King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot, stormed home at Sandown on Thursday.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.50 Ascot (win 10)
BET 2.5pts win SAEIQA
2.05 York (win 10)
BET 4.5pts win AWARD SCHEME
2.25 Ascot (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BET: 6.5pts win ESHAASY
BULL’S-EYE BET: 5pts win EBURY
2.40 York (win 20)
BET 8pts win (nap) ELARQAM
3.35 Ascot (Fortune Cookie, and win 15)
BET 20pts win ENABLE
BET 1pt win SOVEREIGN
4.10 Ascot (win 20)
BET 3.3pts win MASCAT
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