DAQMAN RAISING 22 WINS IN 13 DAYS: Daqman yesterday took his total returns in THIRTEEN days to TWENTY-TWO, with at least one winner a day consecutively. He landed the big handicap at Ascot with Raising Sand (WON 5-1) and named the one-two in the Group-1 Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket:
WON 5-1 RAISING SAND (from 8.4 on BETDAQ)
WON 11-4 LAURENS (Sun Chariot Stakes)
WON (2ND 8-1) HAPPILY (same race, w/p)
WON 4-9 BRUNDTLAND (supernap, 2.32 BETDAQ)
75 ON THE BOARD AGAINST PRICEWISE: The 50-point bull’s-eye hit on Raising Sand was Daqman’s 75th return of the 2018 Flat season against Pricewise: he now leads 75-23 with a profit of 117 points against a Pricewise loss of 132 to single-unit stakes.
ARC ONE-TWO WITH BETDAQ OUTSIDER: Brundtland gave Daqman a winning start to the two-day Arc meeting at Longchamp, a shade of odds on in the morning on BETDAQ, as was his supernap there in the Arc today. He names a dual Classic winner at 19.5 as the win-and-place outsider of the race for another one-two of the weekend.
ARC: READY, WILLING, ENABLE..
ABC GUIDE: 1 Enable 2, Capri, 3 Kew Gardens, 4 Sea Of Class
RATINGS: 1 Enable, 2 Kew Gardens, 3 Sea Of Class, 4 Waldgeist
FORTUNE COOKIES: 1 Enable, 2 Kew Gardens, 3 Sea of Class
3.05 Longchamp (Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe) You can’t say I didn’t tell you! This column followed Enable all last year through her four Oaks wins, her King George and then the Arc de Triomphe at Chantilly.
Now she’s taken a slow road back via a scintillating late trial and pinched pole position a second time, all very reminiscent of Treve’s back-to-back Arc wins of 2013-14 after a similar long intervening setback.
Enable is my supernap at Longchamp today to be the first ever – probably never to be repeated – Arc winner on two different tracks, the first to score at odds on for two years running (though 2.12 on BETDAQ this morning), and the first from Great Britain and Ireland to win twice since Alleged (1977-8) for Vincent O’Brien and Lester Piggott.
Frankie Dettori has already won it back to back at Longchamp (Sakhee and Marienbad, 2001-2) among five Arcs, three in four years if he gets this one.
Olivier Peslier and Pat Eddery remain the only riders to land Arc hat-tricks, and I’m already thinking about next year for Enable, though Paddocks duties must be beckoning.
Andre Fabre has trained back to back twice, but Enable’s handler, John Gosden, will be first to saddle three successful in four years. What of the opposition today?
Well, they were certainly kicking it off the top yesterday. All race times were slow, and got slower towards the end of the meeting.
That’s no help to Sea Of Class, who is badly drawn in 15, almost adjacent to Waldgeist (13). As a stayer who travels well, St Leger winner Kew Gardens (from 14 in between them) won’t mind the wide draw.
The previous year’s Leger went to Capri but he likes to be up there, and his stall 4 has me fancying his chances. He was ‘wrong’ in the race last year but this Irish Derby winner has more class than most of these: 19.5 on BETDAQ.
ANY RAIN AND DOGWOOD WIN
1.20 Longchamp (Prix Marcel Boussac) The two-year-old fillies’ Criterium has been wrested from France in five of the last seven years.
So Rocques looks a precarious favourite against Pink Dogwood (Aidan O’Brien, 3 wins) and Ceratonia (Charlie Appleby, 2), though she’s already beaten that one.
Ceratonia is a half-sister to last year’s Appleby scorer, Wild Illusion, but was outrun by Rocques over the Longchamp CD on the last day after trying to make all.
The difference today may be an easier surface, with light rain forecast and slow times yesterday.
But that being the case, it would be a big help to Pink Dogwood (BETDAQ 5.2), sister to the Irish Derby winner, Latrobe. Impressive at Gowran and, as a Camelot, likely to improve again.
BROOME TO SWEEP UP AT 10.5
1.55 Longchamp (Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere) The colts’ Criterium is below par this year, but it hasn’t been all that strong since Olympic Glory (2012) won it for Team Hannon, and a filly took it last year.
The Hannons now have Boitron (3-3) seemingly the stopper to Freddy Head’s Anodor (2-2), both unbeaten.
But, with the massive resurgence of Ballydoyle, I shall take Broome as Aidan O’Brien’s selected from his usual block entry for this race: the BETDAQ 10.5 looks huge.
WELD’S IMAG(IN)ING A WINNER
2.40 Tipperary (Concorde Stakes) After four wins out of five for Dermot Weld in this, Ger Lyons with Psychedelic Funk last season was one of those who broke the mould.
Weld’s runner Imaging and Psychedelic Funk have both clearly been laid out for this clash, both absent since the Spring, both waiting for today’s ground.
Both stables have been out of form on the Flat: Weld (0-22) and Lyons (1-24). Three-year-olds are six out of eight and Imagining gets 5lb from his main rival.
I’M WITH YOU FOR THE OPERA
3.50 Longchamp (Prix de l’Opera) Aidan O’Brien has not been blessed by the draw, with Athena, Magic Wand and Rhododendron in adjacent stalls, 8, 9, 10. None of the last nine winners have been so high, at Longchamp or in the last two seasons at Chantilly.
Indeed, it was probably Hydrangea’s 9 stall that contributed to her being robbed by Rhododendron (from 5) in this last year (Lady Frankel third).
Wild Illusion is in gate 5 now, and her being dropped back to today’s trip got her the Nassasu Stakes on the last day (from Urban Fox), after Magic Wand outstayed her in the Ribblesdale.
With You, sister to a previous winner of this, has twice run Laurens close (in the Saint-Alary and the Prix de Diane), and Castellar (further behind in the Diane) is on the upgrade.
With You’s 5.9 on BETDAQ this morning allows a win and a place insurance bet in which the place part protects the win.
CITY LIGHT SET TO SHINE AGAIN
4.25 Longchamp (Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp) Battaash is brilliant but flawed. Last year he was at his most brilliant in this, winning unchallenged by four lengths.
I had marked down City Light, the Diamond Jubilee runner-up, to bounce back, having won the Prix de St Georges here in the Spring over a furlong shorter.
That Tantheem got first run on him was largely why he was beaten in his prep for this, the Petit Couvert, also over the minimum, which I reckon a bit short for him now.
Another win and place on BETDAQ this morning at 8.0 early mouse, which also allows a saver on Battaash.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.20 Longchamp (win 20)
BET 6.25pts win PINK DOGWOOD
1.55 Longchamp (win 20)
BET 2pts win and place BROOME
2.40 Tipperary (win 20)
BET 7.5pts win IMAGING
3.05 Longchamp (supernap)
BET 20pts win ENABLE
BET (win 20) 1pt win and place CAPRI
3.50 Longchamp (win 20)
BET 4pts win and place WITH YOU
4.25 Longchamp (win 30)
BET 4.25pts win and place CITY LIGHT
(2.5pts win, stakes saver, BATTAASH)
5.00 Longchamp (win 30)
BET 2.5pts win and place SIR DANCEALOT
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