WHY SUNDAY’S CORAL-ECLIPSE LOOKS TRICKY: Enable is back on Sunday but is it the Enable of 13 wins in 15 starts? Daqman looks ahead to a tricky Coral-Eclipse, with words of warning from John Gosden. It’s all part of a library of form and facts on the big weekend races prepared for punters free in this column. Check them out:
🔹 O’BRIEN IS EPSOM DERBY MOGUL (Tuesday CLICK HERE)
🔹 OAKS ABC GUIDE (Yesterday CLICK HERE)
🔹 ENABLE GIFT TO GHAIYYATH? (Coral-Eclipse below)
4.8 VALUE NAP: BATH TIME OR DAQMAN DUCKING Bath is one of Daqman’s least favourite tracks but one of the trainers in the mile handicap there today is, he says, a ‘master’ at placing them and getting them ready to win. So his runner rates the nap at a BETDAQ-value 4.8.
ENABLE GIFT TO GHAIYYATH?
⚠️ HEADS UP Enable’s target is a King George and Arc double and she may not be as ready for Sunday’s Coral-Eclipse as she was last year. So warns trainer John Gosden, who says that Lord North’s participation is in doubt. Here are the runners in order of their official ratings:
3.35 Coral-Eclipse Stakes, (Sandown, Sunday)
128 Enable The find of the last decade for my Fortune Cookies. We’ve followed her from her Cheshire Oaks win through 10 more triumphs, including the 2018 Arc and this Eclipse last year when she beat Magical and Regal Reality, never in serious danger though the handicapper had her only 2lb in front of the year-younger runner-up.
Same again as she officially gives 2lb to Ghaiyyath but he is a male horse (five-year-old entire), so has to give her 3lb.
In fact, you wonder how Ghaiyyath has reached these dizzying heights. He had won only one Group 1 (in Germany) before taking the Coronation Cup last month from a suspect Derby winner, Anthony Van Dyck, and a marathon star, Stradivarius.
The handicapper wonders, too. He has added not a single pound for that win the 200 experts have been raving about.
126 Ghaiyyath After breaking his maiden in September, 2017, has spent his entire career in Group races, six out of seven in France, Germany and Dubai, his best strike the Prix Harcourt at Longchamp, but was twice beaten – including 33 lengths in the Arc – by Waldgeist.
Waldgeist’s 128 mark also suggests that Ghaiyyath is sky high for what he’s done, though trainer Charlie Appleby insists that Ghaiyyath is only now the finished article.
124 Lord North Another late-developer come to the money pit. Proverbial Group horse in a handicap (off 98) when he won the Cambridgeshire, his progressive form (112>124) was his back-to-back Brigadier Gerard Stakes and Prince Of Wales’s Stakes last month, both at the Eclipse trip of 1m 2f.
He is now at an official 7lb disadvantage with Enable but his finishing turn of foot cannot be overlooked in a likely tactical race.
122 Japan Aidan O’Brien had only the favourite Japan taking on Lord North in the Prince Of Wales (implying he was confident), but the International winner (fourth in the Arc) sweated up and was slow away.
116 Regal Reality Here because he ran third to Enable in this race last year, but was behind Japan in the International and, overall, Sir Michael Stoute has found only 3lb improvement over and above his Group-3 Brigadier Gerard win on this course in May, 2019.
115 Magic Wand Always a ‘nearly horse’ (4-24), with nine seconds, including Arlington Million and Hong Kong Cup.
The mare had won only at Flemington in 19 starts until beating a small field at the Curragh last month after a break.
115 Deidre Sole win in 10 starts since globetrotting out of Japan was the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood last summer under Oisin Murphy, who is back in the saddle.
114 Bangkok Caused a stir in the 2019 Derby betting when he won the Sandown Classic Trial (over the Eclipse CD) but his best run since was a long-looking second to Japan at Ascot, and he was behind Lord North at the royal meeting last month.
▪️ Enable, Magic Wand and Deirdre receive 3lb sex allowance.
DARTINGTON RAISES A GLASS
⭕ 3.40 Bath Rossa Ryan, who had a remarkable 18 winners in June, and is on a hat-trick mission after riding a double at Chepstow on Tuesday, takes over on Real Estate.
Real Estate’s visit to Bath a week ago was a double first: his first run on turf and his first dropped below 6f.
He’s back from his Epsom quarters for an action replay after being hampered at a vital stage, finishing third, and could turn around the placings with the runner-up Union Rose.
Dundalk specialist May Remain, now with George Baker, hasn’t won in England and hasn’t won on turf since July 2017, just under three years ago.
⭕ 3.50 Catterick Olly Murphy, who landed a four-timer at Southwell yesterday, drops Sea Sister into a Classified after two solid handicap seconds.
⭕ 4.15 Bath There was quite a gap between my first winner at Bath – King Arthur to win the battle of Badon – and my hitting on Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill; one and the same place, according to some scribes.
I, personally, haven’t scored there since, so maybe I should just back Anglo Saxson and done with it!
But I’ll take another South-West view. Dartington, straight down the M5, where they make glass, is taken to shatter my poor form on Lansdown Hill.
Marcus Tregoning is a master at placing them right and getting them ready, and the improving Dartington went clear at Lingfield when Motamayiz (a winner since) was his usual slovenly self out of the stalls and never travelling.
San Rafael has been gelded and won first time last season, with trainer Mark Johnston 23% at Bath, while Plath could be anything, but has shown something and nothing at this stage.
I’m hoping Dartington (BETDAQ 4.8) can make the transition to grass, and show the family traits: dam related to a Group-3 winner; sire the leading stallion in France three years running, the daddy of Sottsass and Laurens; big, big players.
DAQMAN’S BETS
3.40 Bath (win 20)
BET 10pts win REAL ESTATE
3.50 Catterick (win 10)
BET 3.75pts win SEA SISTER
4.15 Bath (win 20)
BET 5pts win (nap) DARTINGTON
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