A BEACH OF A BET IN IRELAND! There’s racing today at Brighton, Haydock, Newcastle, Sandown, Wolverhampton and Yarmouth. A shame these meetings were planned for summer sunshine – they won’t get much of that – but Daqman finds a Beach of a bet in the feature race of the entire day at Leopardstown.
IS THIS DOUBLE ON A PLATE? Is Daqman getting paranoid after the Charles Byrnes layer-slayer, or has he found a mini-coup across the cards in selling plates at Brighton and Yarmouth? The nap is at Haydock.
‘SELLER’ DOUBLE CAN SOCK THE LAYERS
2.30 Brighton and 3.40 Yarmouth: Eve Johnson Houghton has saddled winners this month already at 18-1, 20-1 and 33-1, and today she brings Miss Inga Sock back to the scene of the filly’s success on a similar surface with the same handicap mark: 3.7 offers on BETDAQ in the 2.30 Brighton.
The same stable also has Sunbaked in the seller here at `Newmarket-by-the-Sea’ (3.40 Yarmouth). Has she been reading the Charles Byrnes training manual? This one’s 6.2.
I think she’ll probably win with one of her platers, so I’ll bet ‘stop at a winner’ and add a small double just in case Eve has aspirations to a coup.
3.20 Haydock Bop It is just 2lb higher than when winning this race for another stable last year. David O’Meara thinks he’s spotted the reason why the seven-year-old won.
He’s put the same aids on the horse for the first time since they were effective that day. I took 4.4 in the orange early mouse.
4.10 Yarmouth Chris Wall is a dab hand at maiden handicaps. He’s won this one twice using Ted Durcan, and Luang Prabang (a 4.5 offer as I write) will think this is a Yarmouth cakewalk after the serious open spaces of Newmarket.
SECOND SERVE LOOKS ACE LEFT-HANDER
3.30 Brighton Challenge Cup The first crystal ball needed when looking at a card is one to divine the shape of the race: what are these animals; how will they run?
I assumed in the Brighton Mile yesterday that one or both of Mark Johnston’s runners would lead. Both were held up (shum mishtake shumwhere!).
In this one, the Johnston (Second Serve) is one of only two three-year-olds. That also applied when a three-year-old won it in 2011, and Johnston’s winner of this last year was the sole second-season animal.
Another thing that appeals about Second Serve is that he’s a nice each-way price at 6.6. He’s been in the frame four times out of five going left-handed.
I think he’ll be sent to the front (famous last words) so that also makes him a potential trade horse; one on which to take an early position, with punters having very little idea where they’re going in the morning market (4.7 the field).
Only Ravenous and William Hunter have won at this level. Rose Above has yet to win on turf. Cockney Boy has yet to win.
Ravenous could do with losing a few pounds, and Atwix is also up in the handicap. William Hunter would welcome any rain. Smoky Hill’s sole success since 2013 was in an apprentice race where most of the boys were sitting on their horse.
So perhaps the danger is Whinging Willie, laid out for the race by Gary Moore (two winners yesterday), and an even better offer at 7.8 in the orange this morning. With a single-figure overround (109%), you can afford to back two in a race with BETDAQ.
BEACH BEST DESPITE THE BIG WEIGHT
7.25 Leopardstown (Ballyroan Stakes) Dermot Weld had a four-timer in this; now it’s Aidan O’Brien trying for one, if he can add to a hat-trick of winning favourites.
He gives himself two chances with Bondi Beach and the overworked (six races this season) – and overrated? – Shogun, whose record back at this Group-3 level is 323, after English and Irish Derby bids both failed.
Cheekpieces first time and the stone allowance from the four-year-olds may help but we know he, theoretically, has to find six lengths alone on another second-season animal, Stellar Mass, who finished that far in front of him in the Irish Derby.
However, ‘what might have been’ punters will point to his twice having been hampered in his run at Goodwood on the last day (is there a horse that isn’t?).
Surmising that he might have won, he’d be on a similar mark to Stellar Mass, judged on what the handicapper gave the winner, so you also have to assume that he was a 5-6lb better horse that day than in the Curragh Derby.
They say that there are three forms of betting: investment, when you win a small percentage over a series of bets; speculation, when you accept some considerable risk at a price; gambling, when you have no idea of the outcome. Shogun remains speculative, bordering on the gamble.
But ‘gamble’ also means an inspired punt (ask Charles Byrnes), and punters get this race right six years out of seven.
This morning in the BETDAQ orange, it was 6.0 bar Bondi Beach and Jim Bolger’s Stellar Mass, close between the two of them.
Dermot Weld is bringing back his Sea The Stars filly, Almela, after 10 months’ absence, which is where I came in, so..
VERDICT: Decisions, decisions! The stats say that three-year-olds have a modest record (one win in eight years) but they used to do well: 9 out of 11 after the inaugural running in 1991. So what second-season runners you get probably depends on whether the race is fashionable at the time.
Discerning the shape of the race is as tricky as trying to find the winner: St Leger runner-up, Bondi Beach, is a stayer who goes well fresh, and you’d expect him to be up there, but he came from the rear to win a slow-run race at Limerick in the Spring after his last holiday.
Shogun goes best on a sound surface, but this would be last orders at the last-chance saloon! And I think he needs it firm.
I am reminded of the 2013 running of this race when Jim Bolger saddled a Classic fourth but Ballydoyle’s Ernest Hemingway waited on the small field and won despite the steadier of 9st 12lb. The three-year-old was only third of four.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked 1 to 9)
BET 6pts win MISS INGA SOCK (2.30 Brighton), if lose 5pts win SUNBAKED (3.40 Yarmouth), and 1pt win double the two.
BET 6pts win (nap) BOP IT (3.20 Haydock)
BET 5pts win SECOND SERVE and 3pts win WHINGING WILLIE (3.30 Brighton)
BET 5pts win LUANG PRABANG (4.10 Yarmouth)
BET 8pts win BONDI BEACH (7.25 Leopardstown)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 2pts win double BOP IT (3.20 Haydock) and BONDI BEACH (7.25 Leopardstown)
£25 IN FREE BETS
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