ASCOT WRAP: BETDAQ PLACE VALUE: A 10-0 demolition of Pricewise over Royal Ascot, with 69 points profit against him from wise staking. That’s a Daqman celebration but it hides a heartbreak run of EIGHT Daqman value bets placed without winning. His 16 successes took him 198 points clear of Pricewise (score now 45-8) with these near misses in the frame:
20-1 BALLET CONCERTO (Wednesday). Fourth.
20-1 MAVERICK WAVE (34.0 Betdaq, Saturday). Fourth
20-1 TAKE ME WITH YOU (Friday). Third
16-1 BLAIR HOUSE (23.0 Betdaq, Wednesday). Second
16-1 RONALD R (30.0 Betdaq, Thursday) Second
12-1 DEAUVILLE (Tuesday). Third
8-1 CARDSHARP (15.0 Betdaq, Thursday). Third
15-2 PROJECTION (11.0 Betdaq, Saturday). Third
ASCOT WRAP: TOP TEN TO FOLLOW: Which horses are worth following – Daqman calls them Fortune Cookies – for the best of the season from the English Classics and the best Ascot for years? Daqman leaves out the Gold Cup winner, Big Orange, and yesterday’s sprint hero, The Tin Man. He prefers this Top Ten.
ASCOT WRAP: FORTUNE COOKIES
Barney Roy Since he confirmed the Newmarket Guineas form with Lancaster Bomber, his massive turn-around with Churchill may not be acceptable until we have more evidence.
I’m writing this critique of the St James’s Palace Stakes because it would be so easy to say ‘I told you so.’ Before the race I reckoned we’d see Barney Roy grow up and that he’d get his revenge. In fact, I thought he looked magnificent.
Caravaggio The July Cup or a trip to Australia for the new Everest sprint? A few years ago, the Aussies would have appeared self-serving with this launch of a super sprint.
But their domination has been matched by the emergence of the Wesley Ward stars from America – Lady Aurelia mong them – plus the likes of Limato and Marsha, and now Caravaggio, so a world title would be epic.
Enable Ok, I told you so! Our 25-1 ante-post bet on the Oaks has been the triumph of the Flat season so far. She is so good, I see her taking on the colts in the King George, particularly if the Irish Oaks is a shoo-in.
Headway The Coventry is always a good guide these days and I thought that headway – seemingly unfancied at 33-1 SP – was unlucky not to win it, drawn on the wrong side for the pace.
Heartache The Queen Mary looked strong and the winner, Heartache, was drawn alongside a Wesley Ward speedster. It says a lot that she strode away to win nearly three lengths.
Highland Reel When Sir Michael Stoute’s Ulysees led at the furlong pole in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, I was counting my money but the jockey – and this punter – had forgotten that he was throwing his cap into the ring against a street fighter in Highland Reel. You don’t do battle with him and escape unscathed.
Idaho Highland Reel’s brother showed the same tenacity and late maturity to destroy another Stoute hope – Dartmouth – in the Hardwicke Stakes. Twice placed in a Derby, he’ll be worth backing for two more seasons.
Limato The sandwich between The Tin Man and Tasleet in a driving Diamond Jubilee finish, Limato was the unlucky horse of the final day. Gallantly it seemed – but it’s jockeys protocol in a situation where he couldn’t hope to reverse the placings with the first two – Ryan Moore told the Stewards he got ‘a little bump’. That bump will be sore until the day he gets revenge on The Tin Man and Tasleet.
Ronald R The son of Nathaniel racing on the far side in the Britannai got mugged by a typical straight–track ride by Jamie Spencer under the stands’ rails. I can see Ronald R improving into the Pattern.
September If there’s a Classic winner among the Ascot-winning juveniles, it has to be September, who stayed on strongly off a testing gallop in the Chesham. The field looked a good one but they were spread right out at the finish.,
Ulysses I shall always remember this Royal Ascot as expensive for the followers of Sir Michael Stoute, who has paid off many a mortgage of mine. Ulysses is a work in progress
Winter John Gosden enviously called her the best miler in Europe, before the dual 1,000 Guineas winner left them standing in the Coronation Stakes
ASCOT WRAP: THE FALLEN KNIGHT
Racing’s knight won’t fall on his sword. But followers of Sir Michael Stoute were severely wounded in the wallet by his worst-ever Royal Ascot sequence: 04434320300400.
No fewer than EIGHT horses in the frame without winning is called ‘missing strike’ badly. There are several reasons for this – or a mixture of them – and they include horses being just short of peak fitness, missing a vital gallop, slightly off colour, badly placed by the trainer (even in the wrong race altogether).
Something slightly wrong with a stable’s fitness is often exemplified in their fading from a winning position, and Stoute had three of those (I should know. I was on them all, gritting my teeth):
* Led a furlong out: Dartmouth. Fourth.
* Led 50 yards out: Mori. Second.
* Led a furlong out: Ulysses. Third.
That’s really ‘missing strike,’ isn’t it! You strike and you still miss. Four consecutive favourites lost at Ascot, but he did get one up at Newmarket yesterday.
2.00 Pontefract Sir Michael has a 27% strike rate at Pontefract if you delete his losing two-year-olds (0-4 in recent years) so, what with those stats and his poor Ascot results as well, the juvenile Procedure looks a lay as first-race favourite this morning.
3.00 Pontefract Swiftsure is hardly the name you want for a Stoute horse at the moment.
Sound Bar, getting 18lb from Beardwood, seems to have been skilfully placed by Ralph Beckett, who also has a good strike rate on this course but, equally, came away from Ascot with egg on his face after the Gold Cup flop of Simple Verse.
SHE’S A CLASSIC PLACE BET AT 10.0
3.30 Pontefract The big question of the betting day must be: can you support the Stoute-trained Abingdon at odds on, first time out after 290 days’ absence.
Goes well fresh, loves firm ground and already has two Listed-level races to her name. She actually ran behind Simple Verse in the Park Hill, fillies’ St Leger, at Doncaster last backend.
Pure Art has made three attempts to get some black type and failed; Yorkidding looked out of sorts at Ascot; and Signe has beaten small fields of nonentities.
So I shall have a bit each way on the James Fanshawe (62% here). She’s called Colonial Classic. She’s 10.0 on BETDAQ in an eight-runner race as I write and, being a Goodwood winner, she should like this undulating dog-leg track with its uphill finish.
4.00 Pontefract Cup Teak took this in 2014 but Frederic, La Fritillaire, Tuscan Gold and Uncle Bernie have all won here beyond 2m.
When Teak was fourth behind Frederic recently (three others running here were behind) Aurora Grey was third. Teak could run into a place again but Aurora Grey has a massive pull in the weights with the winner.
Akavit looks the biggest threat to Hughie Morrison’s grey filly and, since they are punting Frederic (2.7 favourite, 6.4 bar one), I can back two in the race.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 20 points each)
2.05 Gowran Park
BET 2.25pts win and place SWING TILL DAWN
3.00 Pontefract
BET 6.6pts win (nap) SOUND BAR
3.30 Pontefract
BET 2pts win and place COLONIAL CLASSIC
4.00 Pontefract
BET 3.75pts win on each AKAVIT and AURORA GREY
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