DAQMAN OPPOSES A FAVOURITE BUT ENDS UP LANDING A GAMBLE: Daqman has had a good week opposing the favourites, and it was the best of both worlds yesterday when he took on the Willie Mullins raider, Grangee, at Market Rasen, only to find that his own selection, Eileendover (WON 11-8), would become market leader at the off, and score by more than six lengths, with Grangee third. His Saturday winners were:
✅ WON 1-1 ON THE BLIND SIDE (Nap)
✅ WON 11-8 EILEENDOVER
NAPS HAT-TRICK: ALL WINNERS ON THE RIGHT SIDE FOR DAQMAN: On The Blind Side, also at Market Rasen, and odds against until close to the race, completed a hat-trick of naps for Daqman, none of them odds on. Today’s best bet is at Southwell.
✅ WON 9-2 FLIGHT DECK Thursday nap
✅ WON 5-4 ARTISTIC STREAK Friday nap
✅ WON 1-1 ON THE BLIND SIDE Saturday nap
ENVOI FOR THE FORTUNE COOKIES
⭕ 12.50 Punchestown (Killiney Novice Chase) Match of the day is the clash of out Fortune Cookie, Envoi Allen, and Asterion Forlonge but it’s an unlikely pointer to the Cheltenham Festival.
Willie Mullins, who has won six of the last seven Killineys, eight in all, relies solely on Asterion Forlonge but it’s very hard to fancy the grey to win a jumping match.
Asterion Forlonge jumps to the right and, even here at Punchestown, was going off to the right over over some of his fences, and lucky to stay on his feet at the second last when scoring in November.
He was then a faller on the last day, despite going right-handed at Limerick, and before any serious pressure in the race.
Over hurdles, Asterion Forlonge beat Easywork at Leopardstown far more easily than did Envoi Allen at Cheltenham but the difference in the race distances negates the difference in the finishing distances.
Despite conceding 11lb today, Envoi Allen, who has scored an unbeaten 10 out of 10 under Rules (2-2 in chases), can land a first Killiney for Gordon Elliott.
But Cheltenham ante-post punters should note that the best this race has produced was probably Djakadam, subsequently second in the Punchestown Gold Cup and runner-up again in the Cheltenham Gold Cup to the same horse: Don Cossack.
MAGIC DAY FOR GORDON ELLIOTT
⭕ 1.20 Punchestown (Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle) A tricky contest because it brings together the once-raced Ganapathi who ‘could be anything’, the well-related Magic Tricks who has ‘beaten nothing well’, and the early-season sequence winner, Dreal Deal, who’s just waiting to be shot down.
A trio with typical traits at this time of year, when trainers are just starting to get serious about measuring their Cheltenham prospects.
All the more difficult to assess because Ganapathi is seemingly Paul Townend’s pick of a Willie Mullins pair, while Magic Tricks is of strong interest as brother to Abacadabras, and with stamina in the pedigree.
He beat nothing well at Navan and must improve again, but is just starting out, whereas five-in-a-row Dreal Deal looks like that early-season novice who comes unstuck.
In fact, he’s been winning handicaps and is forced into exercising his right to run in a novice, because his rating has rocketed 35lb from 106 when winning here in October to 141, after landing the odds at Cork the last day, which was in November.
To be fair, he’s won so easily that he’s earned this chance to enter the big time and, if the ratings ‘experts’ are right, there is just ONE pound between Magic Tricks and Dreal Deal at today’s weights.
I shall go for a Gordon Elliott day (BETDAQ 3.5 Magic Tricks to follow Envoi Allen). I can win twice, or land one of the two. Lucky to break even when you’re backing novices!
PLAY A TRUMPS CARD IN NATIONAL
⭕ 3.50 Punchestown (Amateur National) Derek O’Connor, who has won this three times in the last five years, rides Fairly Legal for the in-form Robert Tyner (2-5).
Fairly Legal, who carries the colours of J P McManus, ran second in the Foxrock Cup at Navan in December, having won in a canter on the course a year earlier.
He’s 15lb higher now and this is his first first try at a trip like this though, since he’s from the family of staying chaser Righthand Man, it’s a worthwhile experiment, albeit late in life.
In fact, he is lightly raced for an 11-year-old, and much preferred over another McManus, the Jamie Codd mount which has blinkers first time.
They will have to make enormous changes to Minellfordollars, who has been beaten a total of 253 lengths in his five starts over fences.
Gavin Cromwell trainers a third McManus runner, Spades Are Trumps, and he’s hopeful of improvement for this step up in trip.
Gavin has a full brother to this one, called Ilikedwayurthinkin, a winner over 2m 5f over hurdles, just starting his chasing career, and I want to see him step up, too.
I took 9.9 Fairly Legal on the BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE and 13.0 Spades Are Trumps.
7.8 ARABIAN KING IS ‘COLOSSAL’
⭕ 2.35 Southwell Oliver Stammers couldn’t believe his luck when Notation ran away with a race here in December, so much so that he carried on using the whip when already clearly the winner (two-day ban).
A fluke? Maybe so, since the rest of the field gave up the chase, or were resorting to the whip long before young Oliver.
There had been no notification from Notation of such powers before that run. At Wolverhampton in November, he’d tried to make all and faded seven lengths off the pace.
Yes, he’s best on Fibresand but had previously beaten the 16-lengths runner-up Hermocrates only a neck on the same course in the autumn, and is now lumbered with a 10lb hike for the whip-away runaway.
Arabian King has landed a Southwell hat-trick, including two wins in a hack canter (2-2 over the CD) and, in a scrap between Luke Morris and Olly Stammers, I know who I want to be on at a difference of 9lb.
When Arabian King’s trainer, James Ferguson, books Morris, they are 3-3; never miss a beat (100% success rate). Ferguson is 50% in races like this at Southwell and I go for four naps in a row at colossal 7.8 value on BETDAQ.
DAQMAN’S BETS
12.50 Punchestown
FORTUNE COOKIE early bird
BET 10pts win ENVOI ALLEN
1.20 Punchestown (win 10)
BET 4pts win MAGIC TRICKS
2.35 Southwell (win 20)
BET 3pts win (nap) ARABIAN KING
3.50 Punchestown (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BET: 5.5pts win FAIRLY LEGAL
BET: 4pts win SPADES ARE TRUMPS
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