BANKER IN FOUR ON THE TROT: Saturday-king Daqman was in top gear with four winners in consecutive races as big as 7-1 and including a 30-point gold banker yesterday, two of them part of the Ryan Moore five-timer.
82 POINTS SATURDAY PROFIT: The brilliant run made 82 points profit, and included a handicap one-two (Time Test and Dissolution) which paid 18-1 the straight forecast with Ladbrokes.
3-0 WIN OVER PRICEWISE: The last three winners were in races selected by Pricewise, who drew a blank. The 3-0 win by Daqman over his trade-paper rival puts him 31-6 in front this Flat season. The Daqman winners were:
WON 7-1 Captain Colby
WON 7-2 Time Test
WON 11-4 Night Of Thunder (Lockinge Stakes)
WON 8-13 Telescope (30-point gold banker)
GOLDEN HORN SAVES US FROM ALSO-RANS DERBY
It was going to be losers’ Derby! The three best colts in England and Ireland – to my mind, on trials evidence – were all about to swerve the Blue Riband at Epsom and leave it to the also-rans.
But Golden Horn, the most impressive trials winner in England thus far, will now be supplemented for the Derby.
The way he winged past the then Epsom favourite, Jack Hobbs, and the Racing Post Trophy winning two-year-old Elm Park, in the Dante was Classic class.
Doubts about Golden Horn’s stamina had the owners convinced he should go for the two-furlongs-shorter French Derby but his sire Cape Cross has already got Derby winner Sea The Stars, and was sire of Oaks winner, Ouija Board, the dam of Australia.
But there will be no Gleneagles. The Guineas is one of the best guides to the Derby and this colt showed his winning sequence as a two-year-old to be no fluke when he gun-barrelled to the line at Newmarket.
Ballydoyle have decided to run the son of Galileo in the Irish 2,000 Guineas at The Curragh next weekend. No English Derby.
Also missing at this stage is Success Days. He was a runaway Ballysax winner with John F Kennedy stone last, though we now know that the shy and retiring JFK is not a social animal and lagged out the back last in the Dante, too!
But Success Days then did another demolition job in the Derrinstown, beating by 10 lengths an Azamour colt who had slammed Chester Vase winner Hans Holbein six lengths as a two-year-old.
Seemingly needing soft ground, Success Days may wait for the Irish Derby, even though Hans Holbein is one of the top six in the Epsom market.
D Day for the connections of both Golden Horn and Success Days to pay the £75,000 supplement is June 1, deadline for late entry in the English Derby.
Meanwhile, we must include another good winner, Zawraq, in our trials considerations, and there is one test left: next week’s Predominate Stakes at Goodwood (which also has the Height of Fashion Oaks Trial).
In these trials, and in the top races, at these early stages of the season, it’s been not so much about choosing your horse as guessing which way fitness and tactics will decide the outcome of the race.
Among the older horses, Brown Panther didn’t get the required pace in Snow Sky’s Yorkshire Cup. Among the youngsters in the Dante, Jack Hobbs was too green.
But rarely are level-weights three-year-old results turned around over the same trip in the future, unless there’s something really bad (interference) happens.
In fact, you can follow both Golden Horn and Snow Sky at their winning trips. The question is whether Golden Horn lasts the extra two furlongs of the Derby and whether Snow Sky can improve again to take the Gold Cup after a 20lb-plus rise in a year but no Group 1 win to date.
ONLY A RACE CAN TELL A TRAINER WHAT HE’S GOT
Why are trainers so in the dark? John Gosden fancied a one-two with his in the Dante but ‘didn’t know which way round’ they would finish.
His colts wouldn’t have been galloped together and, no matter what work you put into them in home surroundings, or on a quiet morning on the heath, you can’t always straighten them out, get them fully fit or see what’s in front of you.
And a trainer can only guesstimate, from the horses’ pedigree and the way he walks and gallops, what distance he’ll need, and what kind of terrain will suit.
If he works them too hard too soon, he will ‘leave the race behind at home’ or do too much altogether and ‘get underneath them.’
The real test of a horse is a real race. There is nothing like the actual racecourse experience to bring a horse on, tell you what he’s like mentally, how his physique stands up to racing; what kind of athlete he is, what is his temperament.
Yes, it’s tempting to apply tougher tests at home and, in other parts of the world, ‘clockers’ and ‘time testers’ will work horses against the clock, but their races are usually run for speed.
English and Irish races are generally waiting races, geared to keeping a horse together, then picking off the tired ones – and the stamina suspects – with a cruise finish, hopefully like a Rolls-Royce purring past a family saloon.
There have been trials on the home gallops, some fairly recent, which have set the racing world alight with flammable gossip.
In the 1970s, trainer Dick Hern organized a hush-hush gallop between The Queen’s Derby runner, Milford, and stablemate Troy (tut tut, major; what were you thinking!).
When word got out, the price crashed. Troy, giving weight, had won by the proverbial mile and the rest is history: he won the Derby by a mile, too.
Saddest but sardonic day was when I rang my Newmarket contact about a trainer (still alive, so no names, of horse or trainer, no hack drill) who had a solid contender for the Derby that week.
The Derby was run on a Wednesday in those days, and I called ‘my man in the long grass’ on the Monday: ‘How is Blank Blank for Wednesday?’
‘No chance at all,’ came the reply, ‘the trainer ran him over the full Derby distance on Sunday, so he can’t win now. He’s left the Derby behind on the heath!’
WOKINGHAM PLAN IS A BIG HINT FOR RIPON RACE
3.15 Ripon If Secret Hint is to be a Wokingham type, as Andrew Balding hopes, then the 3.2 about this Oasis Dream filly on BETDAQ just had to be taken for this class-3.
3.50 Ripon The appropriately-named Osteopathic Remedy (he’s aged 11) and Dubai Dynamo (he’s 10 and not so dynamic these days) should, in theory, be knockouts, which could take your BETDAQ orange to an underround situation, where you can back the rest of the field and make a profit.
The pair have run 228 races between them, but Dubai Dynamo refuses to lie down, showing a fair recent set of form figures, and has often placed in this race. He won it in 2012, with Orthopaedic Remedy seventh.
The only improver in the race (by 10lb in five runs since August) is Wilde Inspiration, a Dandy Man gelding who promised more to come when taking a big field at Thirsk three weeks back.
3.40 Market Rasen I would also oppose the old boys (aged 13, 11 and 10) in a hurdle on good ground on a turning track.
It leaves me choosing between Get Home Now and One For Hocky, both long-distance travelers to this event, yet both around 6.5 on BETDAQ this morning.
3.05 Auteuil (Grand Steeplechase De Paris) Apart from the three-times winner Mid Dancer (scored at ages 6, 10 and 11), only one horse has won this of a double-figure age since Fred Winter on Fulke Walwyn’s Mandarin in 1962.
On His Own (aged 11, first-time blinkers, worry about the trip) for Willie Mullins and Sire Collonges ( surely not on the heavy) for Paul Nicholls will be popular with English punters.
But Jacques Ricou, the Tony McCoy of French chasing, on Milord Thomas is a stand-out among the home contingent, as a 3m 4f winner on this ground.
DAQMAN’S BETS (stakes 1 to 9 for strength of selection)
BET 6pts win MILORD THOMAS (3.05 Auteuil)
BET 8pts win (nap) SECRET HINT (3.15 Ripon)
BET 3pts win on each GET HOME NOW and ONE FOR HOCKY (3.40 Market Rasen)
BET 5pts win WILDE INSPIRATION (3.50 Ripon)
NEW !!!
You can now follow BETDAQ updates on Google+
For further details – CLICK HERE
£20 FREE BET
Did you know that as well as checking the realtime prices on BETDAQ below – you can also log into your account and place your bets directly into BETDAQ from BETDAQ TIPS.
