DAQMAN GOLD IN NAPS HAT-TRICK: Daqman’s been shouting it for weeks and yesterday declared: Almanzor is the champion of Europe. So it proved with another scintillating performance on Champions Day at Ascot, a gold banker giving Daqman three naps consecutive:
WON 7-4 Sadlers Risk
WON 6-5 Cliffs Of Dover
WON 11-8 Almanzor
BIG WINNER OVER JUMPS ALREADY: As well as three winning bets at the Flat meeting of champions, Daqman landed the first big race of the Jumps season, the Welsh Champion Hurdle. Here’s his Saturday success, with the feature-race score now Daqman 78, Pricewise 35:
WON 11-4 Garde La Victoire (Welsh Champion Hurdle)
WON 11-8 Almanzor (Champion Stakes, gold banker nap)
WON 7-4 Minding (Queen Elizabeth 11 Stakes)
WON (place lay) Murando (unplaced 5-1 favourite)
SHALL WE? SIX-GUN STOUTE IN WORLD DARE
Intimation of immortality. Maybe Sir Michael Stoute didn’t have the Champions Day ammunition of Aidan O’Brien or Jean-Claude Rouget but he’s spread the net across the continents today, including a Group/Grade 1 double bid, and he’s not done teaching his masterclass in the world theatre.
Panova (2.15 Newcastle) sets the six-hit rolling in England; Intimation and Shall We (4.55 and 5.25 Naas) run in Ireland; Rostova (3.15 Chantilly) in France; Arab Spring (3.55 San Siro, Milan) in Italy; and Dartmouth in Canada’s Woodbine International (10.40).
3.15 Chantilly Rostova had a tall task at Yarmouth behind Group-1 performers So Mi Dar and Nezwaah (another racing in Woodbine tonight).
Golden Stunner (Ralph Beckett) and Havre De Paix (David Menuisier) haven’t shown the class to step up from handicaps, and the Almanazor stable’s Magnolea, third in a Group 3, looks the biggest danger, albeit she hasn’t won since her maiden, which is always a bad sign.
3.55 San Siro (Premio Jockey Club) Arab Spring, winner of two Group 3s, is long in the tooth (three-year-olds are going for a hat-trick in the race) but trainer Stouite excels with older horses.
Dylan Mouth (Marco Botti) has won Group 1 and Group 2 in Italy but disappointed on two trips to Ascot.
Elbereth (Andrew Balding) has a difficult task to break into the Pattern here, and my fancy is Richard Hannon’s Ventura Storm, the Doncaster St Leger runner-up, who had won a Group 3 at Deauville. Progressive.
5.25 Naas The talented Shall We travels to Ireland to get the easy surface that brings out the best in her.
Ignore her two fast-ground efforts and judge her on her fifth in the Ribblesdale at Royal Ascot on soft.
The Aidan O’Brien pair, Hibiscus and Eavesdrop, were easy to back this morning, with Shall We’s nearest market rivals the bridesmaid seven-year-old Toe The Line – one win in two years – and Weld’s Sea Swift having already finished behind Intimation at Gowran.
NAP (2.00 Kempton): I’m following up on my Friday Wincanton nap, Cliffs Of Dover, who looked a polished professional round that difficult track.
Lord Huntingdon, who takes a keen hold and is not always fluent, is odds on this morning, and the 3.8 Cliffs Of Dover looked big value.
DARTMOUTH’S INTERNATIONAL PATTERN
8.48 Woodbine (Nearctic Stakes) Named after Nearctic, this is Canada’s equivalent of the sprint on their champions day (tonight our time).
If you think Galileo is a great sire, try Nearco, whose descendants include Secretariat, Northern Dancer, Shergar, Arkle, Nijinsky and Sir Ivor.
Galileo is Northern Dancer’s grandson, and is among 103 Nearco-descended sires; also among them, Nearctic.
The Northern Dancer line is the prepotent one, and the connection is that he was Canadian. Galileo is doing a great job of continuing the line, but, when you read in the Press that he is the greatest sire ever, blah blah, think on where it all began..
Think on Nearco and Northern Dancer, and who brought their progeny to these islands: Charles ’Goldfinger’ Engelhard and his trainer, Vincent O’Brien.
Mick Channon’s bay mare Divine looks good for this 6f sprint after the horse that beat her in a Group 3 at Newbury in July, The Tin Man, won yesterday’s Champions Sprint at Ascot.
9.56 Woodbine (E P Taylor Stakes) Four from Europe bid to do the hat-trick over North American horses here; in fact, it’s England 3, France 2, Ireland 1 in the last eight years.
Francois Doumen, who won it in 2012 sends over Aim To Please, with Aidan O’Brien (Best In The World), John Gosden (Swiss Range) and Roger Varian (Nezwaah) all trying to get into the Canadian record books.
While Aim To Please and Best In The World have both won Group 3s, Swiss Range has raced at Group-1 level in the French Oaks and the Nassau Stakes behind two of the season’s champions, La Cressonniere and Minding, but tends to be a hard-puller.
10.40 Woodbine (Canadian International) Aidan O’Brien, with Idaho, and Sir Michael Stoute, with Dartmouth, attack the £294,000 first prize on the equivalent of Canada’s Champions Day.
Dartmouth is The Queen’s first runner in her dominion of Canada but her trainer, Stoute, is going for a hat-trick in this race after Cannock Chase and Hillstar, who was runner-up in the Hardwicke Stakes and winner of the Arc trial at Newbury.
Dartmouth won the Hardwicke and was runner-up in the Arc Trial so follows the pattern in the Pattern, which clearly declares: your Grade 1 is our Group 2 or even Group 3 and we can win it again.
Ryan Moore, Dartmouth’s rider in three of his last five starts, is retained for Idaho, winner of just one Group race, the Great Voltigeur, and third in a low-level Derby (see my column earlier in the week). So Dartmouth is a nice little earner for William Buick.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked 1 to 9 for strength)
BET 9pts win (nap) CLIFFS OF DOVER (2.00 Kempton)
BET 6pts win PANOVA (2.15 Newcastle)
BET 6pts win ROSTOVA (3.15 Chantilly)
BET 6pts win VENTURA STORM (3.55 San Siro)
BET 8pts win SHALL WE (5.25 Naas)
BET 8pts win DARTMOUTH (10.40 Woodbine, Canada)
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