WHO’S THE MASTER? 8-1 DAQMAN: In a great season, including a double of Nationals (both 33-1 SP), Daqman brought down the jumps curtain with yet another big-race winner, The Young Master (WON 8-1), in the Sandown Gold Cup. His challenge to the Racing Post was a big-value battle, in which Pricewise scored first at 7-1, and Daqman came back with the 8-1 hit.
HAT-TRICK OF LAYS IN ONE RACE: Daqman really laid into the Sandown Gold Cup to go 16-6 up. As well as backing winner and fourth he landed a hat-trick of place lays in the same race, among them opposing the favourite.
16-1 WINNER IN THE SEASON’S FINALE: Daqman landed a total of seven wins on the day, signing off the Jumps season in the last race at Sandown with a successful 16-1 outsider. His seven wins were:
WON 16-1 McKinley
WON 8-1 The Young Master
WON 4-1 Predominance
WON 11-10 Sprinter Sacre (banker)
WON (place lay) Henri Parry Morgan, unseated rider 5-1 favourite
WON (place lay) Bishops Road, fell 20-1
WON (place lay) Saint Are, unplaced 25-1
13 LAYS UP OUT OF 14: SEVEN FAVOURITES
Selected false favourites. Or diminished place potential. Those are his targets as Daqman treads carefully through the minefield of form and facts in the hope of occasional but solid and reliable insurance for your betting.
His record of 45 from 50 lays up – completed in March – has spurred him on to attempt an even better percentage than that best-yet 90%.
Here’s his current sequence of 13 from 14 (that’s just short of 93%), which included seven losing favourites.
WON (lay) Cold As Ice (unplaced 4-6 favourite)
WON (lay) Lancelot Du Lac (2nd 4-1)
WON (place lay) John Reel (unplaced 12-1)
WON (lay) Mister Universe (unplaced 7-1)
WON (lay) Kayf Moss (2nd 4-1)
WON (lay) Space Oddity (4th 11-4 favourite)
WON (lay) Found (3rd 9-10 favourite)
WON (place lay) Silviniaco Conti (pulled up 12-1)
Lost (place lay) The Last Samuri (2nd 8-1 favourite)
WON (lay) Alice Springs (3rd 5-4 favourite)
WON (lay) Landofhopeandglory (unplaced 15-8 favourite)
WON (place lay) Henri Parry Morgan (UR 5-1 favourite)
WON (place lay) Bishops Road (fell 20-1)
WON (place lay) Saint Are (unplaced 25-1)
WIND OF CHANGE NEEDED FOR SECRET OPS
Did you get wind of the coup of the week? Somebody did. In fact, the world and his wife were on, once the market reacted.
They could hardly miss Holbrook Park at Warwick on Thursday when the best warning system in the business – Betdaq Movers – hoisted the red flag.
Movers spotted the plunge horse at 12.5 from 22.0 but, by the time Holbrook Park lined up for trainer Neil King, his price had crashed to 13-2 SP.
That he won 13 lengths, ‘always travelling well’, did not – for once – escape the attention of the Stewards who, as ever, ‘noted’ the explanation of the trainer’s representative concerning the beast’s sudden improvement. Which was?
The entirely legitimate boost to the 18-hands monster, Holbrook Park, was a successful wind operation.
So successful, in fact, that the owner of this maiden-hurdle winner, Bridget Chamberlain, was a bit soon when she announced: ‘We see him as a three-mile chaser who will handle heavy ground.’ Not too far, Holbrook Park!
Good luck to Neil King and to Ms Chamberlain and I’m picking on Holbrook Park only as an example of ‘what goes on’ in the way of legitimately preparing a horse to win a race.
But, at a time of increased transparency in the sport, when the first run of a horse after gelding is listed in the trade paper, surely we can be told when – to my reckoning – the much more significant wind op has taken place.
All credit to our champion trainer (confirmed to be a man called Nicholls, not Mullins) who rarely misses an opportunity to reveal when one of his charges has had such an op.
While beefing about disregard for the punter, I note that W Mullins upped sticks with his super-mare Vroum Vroum Mag when all chance of the English trainer’s title had gone.
He was fined £1,000, which was roughly the equivalent to sixth-place prizemoney in most events on the card.
Obviously, I’m glad he left in my last-race tip, McKinley (WON 16-1), and I’m glad there’ll be another day, at Punchestown next week, for Vroum Vroum Mag.
But racegoers have a right to expect to see what’s on the card, whether or not it involved a gesture to run for a championship, unless there’s a reason beyond the trainer’s control.
One way or another, punters pay for the racecourse product every day, without any chance of their voice being heard.
MON JEU! 3.9 A DERBY COLT AT MUSSELBURGH
2.00 Musselburgh If you’re still looking for the Derby winner, try this class-5 Musselburgh maiden!
Epsom-engaged Sayedaati Saadati, a Montjeu colt, gets a stone from the disappointing maiden Tawdeea, who has his first run gelded.
Sayedaati’s trainer Kevin Ryan has called on Jamie Spencer – they have a 50% record together – and I took a bit of 3.9 on BETDAQ this morning. It’s Spenny’s only ride of the day at Edinburgh.
2.10 Gowran Park A sharp newcomer with a pedigree could take the relatively disappointing favourites, Schubert and Waitaki.
How about a 700,000-guinea full sister to Zoffany, for a stable which has won this two years out of three. Landikusic was 7.4 on BETDAQ when I checked the orange.
IN-FORM YARD FOR MIDNIGHT FEAST AT 16.0
4.20 Thirsk Never in the history of equine conflict have so many losers left a prize going begging to so few.
A Class-6 handicap is hardly worthy of Churchillian parody – and there are regularly races like it – but, if the stats continue to serve, we’re in an underround orange.
Trainers Michael Chapman (Tayarat) and Martin Todhunter (Rockabilly Riot) share 27 years in total without a winner at Thirsk.
Chapman is on the cold list with 28 losers in the last five months, where Andrew Crook (Tourtiere) is leading the sad stables with 84 losers in 447 days, according to the trade paper.
Ben Curtis (on Tourtiere) has gone nearly two years without a Thirsk winner from 38 rides, while Graham Lee (on Rockabiliy Riot) and David Allan (Surround Sound) are top of the cold-jockeys list for the course.
Intensifed and Lightning Steps haven’t been seen for a total of 413 days. Like Wishing Well, they’ve never won a race of any description.
I shall have my pound on Midnight Warrior, a 16.0 shot on BETDAQ this morning, who could emerge victorious from this stats carnage, as one who has been dropped 10lb since the autumn and whose stable is hot.
Ron Barr has a 50% strike rate this year, and current figures of 131 include his first winner at Thirsk. You’re on a roll, Ron!
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked 1 to 9 points for strength)
BET 6pts win (nap) SAYEDAATI SAADATI (2.00 Musselburgh)
BET 3pts win LANDIKUSIC (2.10 Gowran Park)
BET 2pts win and place MIDNIGHT WARRIOR (4.20 Thirsk)
£25 IN FREE BETS
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