40 POINTS FROM MAXIMUS SO 141 UP: After three consecutive winning naps and 50 points from a bull’s-eye bet on Friday, Daqman won 40 more yesterday in his Grand National bets to bring his four-day profits total to 141.75. The value-challenge score is now: Daqman 11, Pricewise 7.
Grand National: profit on the day 12 points
WON 7-1 I AM MAXIMUS
Aintree Day 2: profit on the day 50.75 points
WON 6-4 INOTHEWAYURTHINKIN (nap)
WON 5-1 KATEIRA (bull’s-eye bet)
Aintree Day 1: profit on the day 48 points
WON 9-4 GERRI COLOMBE (nap)
WON 5-1 SANS BRUIT BETDAQ 6.5 taken
WON 3-1 IT’S ON THE LINE BETDAQ 5.6 taken
Wednesday: profit on the day 31 points
WON 4-1 MR HOPE STREET BETDAQ 6.0 taken
WON 6-5 NO HALF MEASURES (nap)
AINTREE HONOURS TO TOWNEND
It was all over at the first. Even before Corach Rambler overjumped and came down, it was clear that Mr Incredible was ‘doing a Shishkin’ and didn’t want to race.
The shock start to what was supposedly a new-look quality Grand National left us in need of something stunning.
We got it from Paul Townend but not before a heart-stopping scrape of the rails on I Am Maximus, and a Houdini act as he was blocked again before the final fence.
So it was that my headline still held true: ‘Incredible Day For The Irish’ and it may not be the last this season, though it ends in two weeks’ time.
The maximum prizemoney from Maximus puts Willie Mullins in pole position for top British trainer, with the leaders on the run-in:
📈 Willie Mullins £2,874,693
📈 Dan Skelton £2,821,886
📈 Paul Nicholls £2,735,106
📈 Nicky Henderson £2,024,652
Mullins has 10 left in the Scottish Grand National (April 20) and has 13 entries for the Sandown Gold Cup (April 27).
That makes him odds-on for the title but, when he dueled with Paul Nicholls on Sandown’s final day in 2016, he landed only one winner and Nicholls, who is not even second favourite this time behind Dan Skelton, took the honours.
Thinning out the Aintree runners and increasing the quality backfired in the sense that we now had not the charge of the light-weight brigade (‘someone has blundered’) but a jostling dog-tired sprint by half the field at the business end like a Derby staged three times round Southwell.
I’ve never seen so many horses in with a chance, ducking and weaving to get in a challenge, running into each other, diving for the same route up the rails; others running on the spot or back-pedaling.
Townend had to take Maximus around the late challengers before he flew clear up the run-in and could declare: I Am the greatest.
PICTURE PERFECT FOR A NAP
⭕ 1.33 Longchamp (Prix Noailles) This colt’s test, before the fillies’ Grottes, has gone to the in-form Andre Fabre five years out of 10, and he’s currently on a hat-trick.
Both his jockeys today, Michael Barzalona (Casapueblo) and Maxime Guyon (Bright Picture) have won the race for him before.
Bright Picture turned over the favourite, Calandagan, at Saint-cloud over this trip in March and looks nap of the day on that form.
Karl Burke sends over Epsom winner Golden West and Paul and Oliver Cole have booked Aurelian Lemaitre for Black Run, a Nathaniel colt who scored at Goodwood in October.
Betdaq Betting Exchange 2.2 Bright Picture, 9 Black Run, 9 Golden West.
ANOTHER ROSE SET TO BLOOM
⭕ 2.50 Longchamp (Prix de la Grotte) Christopher Head launched Blue Rose Cen on the Classics trail when she made all in this race last season before her French 1,000 and Oaks double and her ultimate farewell victory in the Opera at the Arc meeting.
Head has yet to strike form this term and Nevercry has failed to score in three tries already (322), easy to back at 16-1 under Aurelien Lemaitre the last day.
Deauville trainer Stephane Wattel won this trial with Rosacea in 2022, subsequently third in the French Oaks to Nashwa.
His contender today, Tulipa Chope, progressively won Listed then Group 3 at Deauville in the autumn.
Christophe Ferland, who hails from Chantilly, prepared Julica to win three races, wrapped around her Marcel Boussac bid, eighth as an outsider behind Aidan O’Brien’s runaway, Opera Singer.
The five-lengths runner-up to the Newmarket 1,000 favourite was Rose Bloom and, though her team of trainer Clement and jockey Pasquier have yet to hit top form, she won first time of asking last season. BETDAQ 2.85.
TRANSMISSION DRIVES MARKET
⭕ 3.15 Plumpton Anthony Honeyball had Sam Brown second and Forward Plan third as Tom Lacey’s Cruz Control refused to give in, making all in the Freebooter Chase at Aintree yesterday.
Norton Hill could give him some compensation here at Plumpton on the day there is Hereford, where the eight-year-old has won the last twice. It’s put him up an overall 11lb into this higher grade, class 3.
San Pedro has already made that leap, yet he gets 15lb from Norton Hill, though that one’s been lucky to get good ground for the third race running and San Pedro’s wins have been in small fields with not much to measure him by.
Neil Mulholland won this last year, and morning-mover Transmission’s defeat by Gwennie May Boy at Uttoxeter (Striking A Pose PU) doesn’t looks so bad after that one demolished the handicap hurdle field as Aintree’s opening attraction yesterday.
On the ratings and at the weights, the Mulholland second-string, Broomfields Cave is just as good but Transmission is claimed off.
BETDAQ value: 3.25 Transmission, 6 Norton Hill and 11.5 San Pedro
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.33 Longchamp (win 12, nap)
BET 10pts win BRIGHT PICTURE
2.50 Longchamp (win 10)
BET 5.5pts win ROSE BLOOM
3.15 Plumpton (win 10)
BET 4.25pts win TRANSMISSION
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