DAQMAN GRATEFUL FOR 25-1 WINNER: Daqman landed his Aidan O’Brien double at Longchamp, then went desperately close with his nap (Andromede 50-point win, 2nd 10-1 from 13.0) and his win-and-place bets on 33-1 Treasure and 16-1 Fresh. Finally, he was Grateful to hit the big one at last with the 25-1 winner of that name at Longchamp.
WON 25-1 GRATEFUL Longchamp
WON 2-5 ILLINOIS (double) Longchamp
WON 1-5 KYPRIOS (double) Longchamp
(WON) w/p 2nd 33-1 TREASURE Newmarket
(2nd 10-1 from BETDAQ 13.0 ANDROMEDE, nap) Longchamp
🇫🇷 ARC DAY IS HERE AT LAST: Daqman forecasts winners at Longchamp for English raiders John Gosden, Karl Burke and Ralph Beckett but supernaps ‘next year’s French-trainer Arc winner’!
BLUESTOCKING IS A GOLIATH
🇫🇷 3.20 Longchamp (Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe) Forecast soft but forecast sunny! At stake £2,484k to the winner, with England, France and Germany returning to the action they have shared in the last three seasons of two winning favourites and one 72-1 outsider, aged 3, 4 and 5, two low drawn, one high.
It couldn’t be more wide open and nerves have been showing: both the trainers of first and third in the Prix Niel trial, Sosie and Look De Vega, say that they were short of a gallop and needed the race.
The same horses were first and third in the French Derby, but the other way round and over two furlongs shorter.
They’ve told the French Press that their three-year-olds may not be as good as the English. In fact, English trainers don’t have any top three-year-olds in this! But we know a man who does.
He’s French and he trains where Dancing Brave learned his trade. Tamfana gave him his first Group-1 winner yesterday. Take a bow David Menuisier, who has engaged champion-jockey-elect Oisin Murphy to land the second on Sunway!
In fact, while Andre Fabre (Sosie) and Yann Lerner (Look de Vega) face off to keep the honours in France, Menuisier (Sunway) and Aidan O’Brien (Los Angeles) are pistols drawn to settle their own head-to-head.
Like Sosie v Look De Vega, Los Angeles and Sunway have their own private return duel after their one-two in the Irish Derby. There can only be one winner of the dual duels, and he’ll be £2.5m wealthier for it.
Can anyone spoil the two tete-a-tetes? The answer is usually the same: an improving horse for a trainer going places or a jockey on the up. Both. Or all three.
That would have to be Vermeille winner Bluestocking (Ralph Beckett, Rossa Ryan), second in the King George at Ascot to the one star that’s missing from today’s grand parade: Goliath.
He is the older horse who has already dispatched the three-year-olds (Sunway was 10 lengths fourth at Ascot) and it’s to him that French trainers genuflect when they say: maybe this year’s crop isn’t that good after all.
How about this Irish four-year-old? Beaten only threeparts of a length by subsequent Arc winner, Ace Impact, last August and lost a shoe when going down only a length to City Of Troy in the Eclipse. Name of Al Riffa, ridden by 55-year-old Yutake Take.
Betdaq Betting Exchange: 5.5 Sosie, 5.8 Los Angeles, 8.6 Look De Vega, 10 Al Riffa, 12 Bluestocking (pictured below), 43 Sunway.
ZARIGANA FOR FUTURE ARC
🇫🇷 12.55 Longchamp (Prix Marcel Boussac fillies’ criterium) Blue Rose Cen (2022) was a big hit for Daqman in this but Aidan O’Brien got pole position last year.
At £199k to the winner and the potential of an Arc winer (Found for O’Brien in 2014), he has a strong contender today in Bedtime Story. But the very link to the Arc has already been established in today’s race by the French.
Their number-one is Zarigana, granddaughter of Zarkava, 2008 Arc winner, restoring the strength of fillies in the Arc established by such as Allez France.
In the last 11 years, there has followed fillies and mares Treve (two years running), Found, Enable (also twice) and Alpinista.
No surprise then if Bluestocking continues the trend, and Zarigana starts her path to glory here in the manner of winner Found a year early!
THE GOSDENS RACE OF GOLD
🇫🇷 1.30 Longchamp (Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere colts criterium) Aidan O’Brien must be strongly fancied to get one back, though strangely his sole Lagardere win in the decade was with a filly, Happily.
Henri Matisse would have been odds-on today but for blowing a four-timer bid when he ran around and gave away the National Stakes prize to a 12-1 shot, who is being saved up for Dewhurst or Futurity.
Henri Matisse will be blinkered to keep him straight but, now or for the future, it’s not what the purist wants to see in a race of this calibre.
He had Cowardofthecounty well beaten in the National Stakes after that one kicked clear of Houquetot at Deauville, in turn winner at Longchamp over Heybetli.
Rashabar has the Breeders Cup in his sights, after running up to Whistlejacket in the Morny, though I may not have named today’s winner yet. Field Of Gold could be the answer.
The big but beautiful Kingman colt beat a Lope De Vega called Matauri Bay in the Solario at Sandown, a race Team Gosden won with Ravens Pass, Too Darn Hot and Kingman himself.
STARLUST RECOVERY MISSION
🇫🇷 2.05 Longchamp (Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp) STATS: French sprinters rarely get a look-in: 1-10 in the decade.
To defy a high draw, you need a real champion, like Highfield Princess, at her best this day last year; six years old but blessed with the fast ground she needed.
Before her, three-year-olds were 5-7, with four winners coming out of gates 2 (twice), 3 and 5 since the brilliant Battaash in 2017.
Unless the forecast sunshine is tropical, Nunthorpe and Flying Five winner Bradsell is disadvantaged by soft ground.
Getting 5lb now and handily drawn 5, the Nunthorpe runner–up Believing could edge past him in the closing stages, which would be a huge marker in the career of Billy Loughnane.
They were one-two when Starlust (pictured below) was third, after Rossa Ryan dropped the rein. Winner with ease in the ground and drawn 2, her jockey will desperately want to make amends.
FALLEN ANGEL A BURKE STAR
🇫🇷 4.05 Longchamp (Prix de l’Opera) French jockeys have managed to score five in a row over this tricky 1m 2f with the short straight.
Sparkling Plenty (Cristian Demuro) didn’t last out in the Vermeille against Bluestocking, and she was hampered, third in the Nassau, after winning the French Oaks.
Content (Christophe Soumillon) was thrashed by Bluestocking in the Pretty Polly on soft, and Ryan Moore prefers Ylang Ylang, 5th in the 1,000 Guineas, and could return to form over this trip.
Fallen Angel for trainer of the moment, Karl Burke, also found the mile too short when beaten only a length by Porta Fortuna (Ylang Ylang fourth) in the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown.
DAQMAN’S BETS
12.55 Longchamp (supernap)
BET 20pts win ZARIGANA
1.30 Longchamp (win 12)
BET 4pts win FIELD OF GOLD
2.05 Longchamp (win 20, win 12)
BET 2.5pts win STARLUST
BET 3pts win BELIEVING
FORTUNE COOKIES
(3.20 Longchamp
20 points on each)
1:BLUESTOCKING
2: LOOK DE VEGA
3: SOSIE
4.05 Longchamp (win 12, win10)
BET 3pts win SPARKLING PLENTY
BET 3pts win FALLEN ANGEL
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