BETDAQ VALUE IS ON A PLATE: WHO DARES WINS! If you’d dared bet in the Northumberland Plate at BETDAQ XSP you could have won 23.60 per unit stake not the 12-1 bookmaker SP on Who Dares Wins. The BETDAQ-savvy punter could also have been on Daqman’s tips in the two previous races at Newcastle, Invincible Army (WON 11-10) and Carnwennan (WON 7-2), who was 5.8 on the exchange in the morning. However you bet, there was BIG BETDAQ value to be had all through the day.
200 POINTS UP: DAQMAN LEADS PRICEWISE 41-20: Carnwennan put Daqman further ahead of Pricewise in their value challenge: Daqman now leads 41-20, with our man some 200 points clear of his Racing Post rival to 10-point level stakes on each selection.
Supernaps: 12 out of 16 (110 points up to 20 point stakes)
Daqman 41 Pricewise 20 (200 points clear to 10 unit stake)
Bull’s-eye naps (4-9) 151 points up to recommended stakes
FURY AT FAKE-NEWS IRISH DERBY
We wuz robbed! But let’s not be selfish; aren’t we in this for the love of the thoroughbred? In which case, it was Anthony Van Dyck who was robbed yesterday at the Curragh of his place on the roll of honour as a dual Derby winner.
It’s irretrievable; he can’t get the opportunity back. But it was retrievable for his jockey Ryan Moore, had he acted on the situation and ridden to the pace.
As it was, he allowed the stable’s pacemaker, Sovereign, an unassailable lead, staying too far back to deliver an effective challenge, though closing the winner down to six lengths at the line, with the Epsom Derby hero still full of running.
Why blame Ryan Moore; what about the others? Chris Hayes on Madhmoon compounded the error by admitting that he followed Moore and, with Broome making a slow start, there was no self-belief anywhere in the field to challenge the tactics.
Aidan O’Brien, trainer of the first three to finish, sees it differently; well he would wouldn’t he; after all, he’s now got himself two Derby winners in the space of a month, with all the euro-power it packs into their CVs for stud duty later on.
O’Brien told the Racing Post form analysis: ‘They were all there and they were all trying their best. It was all very straightforward.
Everyone knew Padraig (Beggy on Sovereign) was going to lead and Seamus was going to follow him. He’s a very honest to God horse. The race maybe unfolded a little bit unusual.
‘Sovereign wasn’t for stopping. He’s a Galileo and, when they start galloping, they usually don’t stop.
‘The winner is a staying horse and he’s going to stay well. He won’t mind going the Leger trip. He could go to the King George or go to Grand Prix de Paris in France and then could have a break and go to the Leger.’
Well, now you know, all those Tweeters, whose fury I simply cannot quote here; I don’t have licence to repeat such language, and wouldn’t want to.
I would simply say this: ‘it was all very straightforward’ if a ‘bit unusual’ is not an explanation which is going to endear connections to the growing number of racing folk who already see Classic after Classic as a Ballydoyle carve-up. Or, to put it another way, this was rubbing their noses in it!
Not for the first time has the pacemaker become the party pooper. Any Ballydoyle ballyhoo about this winner cannot disguise the feeling that this is fake news.
The only way to resolve it is another day, another race but, so dominant is the Aidan O’Brien team, that the racing world sees any subsequent rematch as simply rearranging the result in Ballydoyle’s favour.
FRANKIE FANS ON (St) CLOUD NINE
Talk about unlucky. One wrong can be set right this afternoon, when Frankie Dettori rides Mehdaayih in the Prix de Malleret (3.25 Saint-Cloud).
Frankel’s daughter, winner of the Cheshire Oaks, was only sixth under Robert Havlin when favourite in the Epsom Oaks behind her stablemate Anapurna, ridden by Frankie.
‘Not clear run two out’ and ‘hampered a furlong out’ is the form book recognition of her poor passage through the Epsom race.
I’ve also been waiting six weeks for a Fortune Cookie called Headman, but his reappearance this afternoon in the Prix Eugene Adam (4.35) is a big step up, particularly with the impressive Flop Shot in the field.
So rather than simply taking a swipe with Headman, and risking an air shot, I’ll punt Flop Shot down the fairway as well.
4.00 Saint-Cloud (Grand Prix) Five out of seven runners trained in England! It’s a race the rosbifs love and they’ve had spells of dominating it before now.
But that they’re five-handed here surely also tells us about the lack of middle-distance strength in the French thoroughbred. Their two runners are unlikely to be anywhere near the front of the market.
This despite retrieval of the 1m 4f Grand Prix by French trainers in the last decade, with seven winners, five trained by Andre Fabre (3), and Alain de Royer-Dupre (2).
John Gosden, very powerful in recent years in the fillies and mares division, runs both Coronet, beaten a nose in this last year, and the St Leger runner-up Lah Ti Dar. Both were out of form on the last day.
Roger Charlton’s Aspetar, runner-up to Marmelo in the John Porter, gets his chance, courtesy of his success in the Grand Prix de Chantilly, when the locals thought he was lucky to beat the Laffon-Parias colt Ziyad (short of room), who takes him on again here, under Maxime Guyon.
The Fabre runner, Morgan le Faye, has landed a hat-trick over shorter but broke her maiden over today’s trip and raced last autumn in the great French marathon triple, third every time in Gladiateur, Cadran and Royal-Oak.
On collateral form, there is precious little between Aspetar, Marmelo and Ziyad. I wouldn’t like to split them, just as I wouldn’t care to choose which one of the Gosden pair will be a punter’s godsend this afternoon.
All this on ground which will presumably have baked in the high temperatures, occasioning a withdrawal or two, I imagine.
VERDICT: I am putting line through the six-year-olds, Marmelo and Thundering Blue, since only one of that age group has won since 1985, and I’ll refuse to put money on an attempt to split Aspeta and Ziyad, and the Gosden duo.
We simply don’t know, but what we do know is that Morgan le Faye has won a Group 2 and a Group 3 this year over 10 furlongs, and was beaten only about a length in 15-20-furlong Group-1 marathons. We need such versatility in today’s tricky contest.
21.0 MAHLERMADE MUSIC TO MY EARS
4.05 Uttoxeter (Summer Cup) Market Rasen and Uttoxeter have taken summer jumping to a new level. It wouldn’t catch on; it wouldn’t last ‘they’ said.
But Market Rasen announces that the July 20 Summer Plate ‘Ladies Day’ is already a VIP sell-out, and other areas of the course facilities are in high demand.
Uttoxeter gets in first today with another huge field for the race, first run in 2000 as the Summer National. Which trainers have the current form to win it?
The answer is a bit repetitious these days – Henderson, King, Skelton, Tizzard – for when are those four not in form?
The stats tell us that, with few exceptions (3-19) this track is too fast, even at 3m 2f, for horses of a double-figure age. They also reveal that the winners have come from flat-track experience, more your Aintree, Kempton horse, than from Cheltenham.
So tipsters telling me how well their fancy did at Chepstow or Cheltenham is a turn-off, as indeed is soft and heavy ground success.
Dragon d’Estruval’s success came on the very soft Auteuil terrain, and Brave Eagle’s best form is at Newbury and Haydock, over at least half a mile shorter than today, and he’s Flat-bred.
In fact, few in the race have long-distance form. Best guesses for the trip include Theclockisticking (but made jumping mistakes here last month) – his dam is sister to a Gold Cup winner – and Mahlermade, who won the Staying Chase Series Final at Haydock.
You Say What loves Exeter and Blairs Cove’s success is only at Warwick. Harry Skelton prefers Notwhatiam, whose dam’s sire was responsible for the Cool Ground/Cool Dawn staying family.
VERDICT: Mahlermade was big on BETDAQ this morning at 21.0. Notwhatiam at 12.0.
DAQMAN’S BETS
3.15 Windsor (win 20)
BET 8.5pts win SWISS AIR
3.25 Saint-Cloud (supernap)
BET 20pts win MEHDAAYIH
4.05 Uttoxeter (win 30)
BET 3.5pts win NOTWHATIAM
BET 2.5pts win and place MAHLERMADE
4.35 Saint-Cloud (win 20)
BET 10pts win FLOP SHOT
FORTUNE COOKIES
(20 points level stake)
HEADMAN 4.35 Saint-Cloud
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