WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR SATURDAY? Disappointed in the Eclipse. His big handicap bets don’t get a run. His nap slides out of contention and Haydock abandons the rest of its card. Daqman is not a happy bunny with all that’s left a 1-4 winner. It was a ‘Saturday of desperate charades’.
WON 1-4 CITY OF TROY (Saturday Fortune Cookie)
WON 11-10 ANNO DOMINI (Friday)
WON 11-4 FAST STEPS (Thursday nap)
DEAUVILLE AND CHELMSFORD TODAY: The Prix Jean Prat at Deauville today seems dominated by English raiders. Chelmsford has more than one quality horse representing Royal Ascot form. And BETDAQ has the best value betting.
TOMORROW: Countdown to the July Meeting.
DAY OF DESPERATE CHARADES
CALL me old-fashioned (no water in that, thankyou). But I was brought up to believe that a great horse can overcome conditions; trip and ground, and the way the race develops were there to be overcome and show just how special he is.
If excuses have to be made, then he may be only a ‘good’ horse, even ‘very good’, but not ‘great.’ He may beat the rest but how good are ‘the rest.’
In the case of City of Troy, heralded as not just great but ‘greatest ever,’ I am disappointed. Again.
He is beaten 17 lengths in the Guineas at 6-4 on, because things weren’t right; the track, the trip, his training (all have been posited in the box marked ‘excuses.’)
In the Derby, off a rating of 124, he beats two which are both on a meagre mark of 111, ‘led two out, soon hung right,’ according to Raceform.
In yesterday’s Eclipse (‘hung right throughout, pushed along two out, soon ridden’) he beats by only a length a 114-rated horse, with a 112 colt another length further back. Ryan Moore dismounted and blamed himself. (pictured below, second left)
So now we have trainer blames himself for the Guineas defeat. Jockey blames himself for workmanlike Eclipse of more inferior horses.
Not my idea of ‘great’ and hardly enough for Coolmore to Justify the hyperbole of a Derby and Eclipse double.
CALL me old-fashioned (I need a double this time, please). Just as you can’t run a tennis tournament with a big hole in the net, you need 100% confidence in the ground to hold a race meeting, with million-pound thoroughbreds, delicate machines of flesh and blood looked after at great expense.
Maybe more than a million was lost by two fillies yesterday: because the filly Tiffany lost her footing on the bend during the Lancashire Oaks but still finished second to one whose win was suspect because the prize had already slipped from her nearest rival.
There had been a problem on the bend earlier and three races on the card after the Oaks were abandoned. It’s disappointing if not disgraceful.
In these two stories, that the punter suffers is completely ignored.
His big race of the day becomes a 4-1 on charade; at the other main meeting, they can’t even run the big handicap, despite ‘going good with sunny spells.’
KIKKULI THE FORM HORSE
⭕ 3.07 Deauville (Prix Jean Prat) Two Irish and two English have taken this near-£200k first prize in the last five seasons, the best of them off ratings of 114 and 120 Kikkuli (112), Vespertilio (112), Devil’s Point (111), Iberian (111), Kathmandu (110) and Romantic Style (109) are just short of that standard. Worse still for punters trying to spot the value, they are all within a couple of pounds of each other.
Devil’s Point had his German 2,000 Guineas success boosted by the runner-up but Kikkuli was beaten just a short-head by Haatem in the Jersey Stakes (same trip as today’s) after that one had lost out by a head to Rosallion in the Irish 2,000.
Hidden horse is Iberian, whose stable struck with first-run-back Cicero’s Gift at Sandown yesterday.
Iberian ran Haatem to a length last summer and beat Sunway and Rosallion in the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster (7f soft); needs to bounce back.
Betdaq Betting Exchange 2.76 Kikkuli, 9.3 Iberian
PINAFORE TIES IN TO ASCOT
⭕ 3.15 Chelmsford (7f fillies’ Listed) The grey Pinafore’s defeat of Soprano, giving her 10lb (they were second and third in a Musselburgh Listed) looks good after Soprano’s strike in the Sandringham Handicap at Royal Ascot, giving the runner-up 17lb. BETDAQ 4.9.
⭕ 3.50 Chelmsford (1m 2f handicap) Fourth in the Kensington Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, Rowayeh has to beat the consistent Hosanna Power, who earlier pipped Cracksking at Newbury.
It must have brought tears to the breeders’ eyes to have Cracksking gelded before the start of the season, his being by Frankel!
⭕ 4.25 Chelmsford (2m handicap) Hedonista and Mountain Road were one-two at Kempton when last they met. But both may have to give way to an 11.0 BETDAQ offer this morning.
That’s Hope You Can Run, with Charlie Johnston bagging the stayers’ handicap at Haydock yesterday with Align The Stars and Billy Loughnane landing a Sandown double.
DAQMAN’S BETS
3.07 Deauville (win 12)
BET 6.75pts win KIKKULI
BET 1.5pts win IBERIAN
3.15 Chelmsford (win 10)
BET 2.5pts win PINAFORE
3.50 Chelmsford (win 10, nap)
BET 4pts win ROWAYEH
4.25 Chelmsford (win 20)
BET 2pts win HOPE YOU CAN RUN
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