DAQMAN HAS ARC OFFER HE CAN’T REFUSE: Daqman’s Fortune Cookies have followed Enable’s reign all the way to today’s Arc de Triomphe treble bid. But today in the heavy ground at Longchamp, and with a BETDAQ place market as saver, he finds 8.2 about the improver of the race an offer he can’t refuse. Headlines in race order:
🔹 8.0 BIONIC MAY BE BEST IN THE MUD
🔹 GODOLPHIN ALREADY JUVENILE VICTOR
🔹 DRAW AND GROUND ENABLE SOTTSASS
🔹 CONDITIONS WILL SUIT 17.0 COMMES
🔹 SPINNING CAN BEAT THE BATT AT 10.0
FRANKIE AND ANAPURNA TO THE RESCUE: Daqman’s Oaks winner, Anapurna, made his Saturday respectable under Frankie Dettori when she won the fillies and mares race at Longchamp, and he also went close with his bull’s-eye-bet outsider at Ascot.
WON 17-5 ANAPURNA
3RD 14-1 ESCOBAR (from 25.0 BETDAQ offers)
DRAW AND GROUND ENABLE SOTTSASS
3.05 Longchamp (Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe) Daqman has analysed every aspect of the big race throughout the past week:
🇫🇷 THE STORY OF ENABLE (see Monday and Tuesday Daqman)
🇫🇷 ABC GUIDE Enable, Sottsass, Magical (see Wednesday Daqman)
🇫🇷 DRAW BIAS Sottsass, Soft Light, Waldgeist (see Thursday Daqman)
🇫🇷 GOING Enable, Sottsass, Japan, Magical, Waldgeist (see Friday Daqman)
DAQMAN’S ORDER IN (below)
1 Sottsass (pictured) has the edge on his principal rivals from the one stall. Ghaiyyath on his style of running so far is the most encumbered with his outside draw in 12. It’s hard to see him getting across to run his usual race.
Sottsass draw is not ideal but is far superior to Ghaiyyath’s 12 stall and Japan’s 10. The ground is also in his favour; so is his progressive form in winning the French Derby and then the Prix Niel, which produced seven Arc winners in 11 seasons up to 2006.
Sottsass was shut in on the rail in the Niel and only an improving colt with courage and, more importantly, an instant turn of foot, could escape and win on the soft ground. He did, which makes him a worthy opponent for Enable, and the value of the race in BETDAQ at 10.0.
2 Enable She has scooped the Arc prize the last twice among 12 wins in a row under Frankie Dettori, making an overall £9.4million, also winning five Oaks, two King George and one Coral-Eclipse.
I would love to see her win but jockeying for position from a wide draw in very soft ground could use up her energy against the young improvers, Sottsass and Japan. It will require all the skills of the incredible Dettori.
Frankie, already winner of the Arc six times, twice on his beloved mare, has a better-than-50% Group-1 strike rate for John Gosden this season.
But, while Sottsass and Japan have been bursting bubbles, Enable has spent the last year repeatedly dominating the same horses, Crystal Ocean (second twice) and Magical (second three times).
In ratings terms she dipped in the process, according to the official handicapper. Though now restored to the 128 from her last year’s Arc, I note that Timeform regards her peak as the 2017 Arc and considers her 5lb below that now.
3 Japan The draw (stall 10) has conspired against Japan in this Arc after his hat-trick of King Edward V11 Stakes; Grand Prix de Paris; and York International but no placed horses in those races have won since; only the International stands out.
Japan beat Crystal Ocean a head in that race after Enable had beaten the same horse a neck in the King George. That’s one of the alarm calls which has me ringing the changes today.
8.0 BIONIC MAY BE BEST IN THE MUD
1.15 Longchamp (Prix Marcel Boussac) English and Irish raiders, who are six out of nine in this fillies’ juvenile championship through Aidan O’Brien, Charlie Appleby and John Gosden, have dropped the baton in the mud today, save for Jessica Harrington’s Albigna, who finished well behind in the Moyglare.
Andre Fabre’s Savarin, out of a Refuse The Bend mare who won the Irish Oaks, has been strongly supported instead of her stablemate, Bionic Woman (8.0 offers best), who is unexposed and should love the ground as a Lope De Vega out of a Montjeu.
GODOLPHIN ALREADY JUVENILE VICTOR
1.50 Longchamp (Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere) Mighty sire of the season Shamardal has another two-year-old ace for Godolphin here in the appropriately named colt, Victor Ludorum, who could complete a juveniles double for Andre Fabre and Mickael Barzalona.
Godolphin already has the keys to the Classic vault with Pinatubo, who beat the Ballydoyle candidate here, Armory, nine lengths in the National Stakes at the Curragh.
CONDITIONS WILL SUIT 17.0 COMMES
3.55 Longchamp (Prix de l’Opera) John Gosden has this Opera as a gap on his Group-1 CV, strangely for one so good with fillies and mares. Can he fill it today with Mehdaayih (stall 3), daughter of Frankel and runner-up in the Nassau?
Gosden, who won the Royallieu yesterday with Anapurna (Frankie Dettori), has also booked Mickael Barzalona for Terebellum.
They won a Group 2 together on the soft at Deauville in August but the runner-up was stone last to Anapurna yesterday, and Terebellum is not well drawn here in 9.
Having watched Kynren win yesterday after six seconds and two thirds, I’ll have a tiny masochistic win-and-place Commes (17.0), just run out of it in two French Classics, one of them the 1,000 Guineas on heavy ground.
SPINNING CAN BEAT THE BATT AT 10.0
4.30 Longchamp (Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp) The last two Abbaye winners clash today, Battaash and Mabs Cross, who beat him a year ago but has been out of form this season.
Battaash dropped off the edge last season but a second round of wind surgery has seen him return to his best this term, with a scintillating Nunthorpe victory on the last day and has gone almost a million ahead of his arch rival in prizemoney won and a stone up on the ratings.
Can anything come and spoil the rematch? Fairyland, third in the July Cup and winner of the Flying Five (So Perfect, Invincible Army and Soldier’s Call the placed horses) ran her only poor race on soft, and was always in rear in the Nunthorpe.
Spinning Memories has won on heavy ground and has raced prominently in her wins over further. Like the Arc situation, the best horse is odds on and the main danger value, exchanging at 10.0 this morning and with a place saver of 2.8.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.15 Longchamp (win 20)
BET 2.75pts win BIONIC WOMAN
1.50 Longhamp (win 10)
BET 5.5pts win VICTOR LUDORUM
3.05 Longchamp (win-50 bull’s-eye nap, place 10)
BET 6pts win and place SOTTSASS
3.55 Longchamp (win 20, place win 10)
BET 1.25pts win and 3.5pts place COMMES
4.30 Longchamp (win-50 bull’s-eye bet, place 10)
BET 5pts win and place SPINNING MEMORIES
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