THREE MAXIMUM-STAKES BANKERS OUT OF THREE: Daqman just can’t nail the big prices this week – he was so close yesterday with Meister Eckhart (2nd 14-1) – but his banker bets have hit a hat-trick, Sprinter Sacre (WON 1-4), following Simonsig (WON 8-15) and Chatterbox (WON 5-4) to make it three out of three.
DAQMAN HAS 16.0 ON BETDAQ ABOUT 8-1 WORLD HURDLE WARRIOR: Daqman’s ante-post betting has accumulated around 28 points of ‘overs’, if you include the difference today between his 16.0 Bog Warrior on BETDAQ and the 8-1 or so with bookies for the World Hurdle.
HEY UP, CHARLIE! HE OPENS WITH AN 8.2 BETDAQ NAP: His grabbing big early prices has given him a head start on all the action, followed through on the daily BETDAQ markets. But, after two short-odds bankers this week, he’s going nap on 8.2 Aupcharlie in the very first race.
1.30 Cheltenham (Jewson Novices Chase) The last two horses to beat Aupcharlie – Back In Focus (by a head) and Tofino Bay (by half a length) – finished first and second in the National Hunt Chase yesterday.
Now he drops back half a mile and should be engaging top gear up the hill. That also applies to Dynaste, who has taken 20f and 24f in his stride. But we do have a line between them.
Hadrians Approach, nine lengths second to Dynaste at Kempton, was just under eight lengths behind Lord Windermere in yesterday’s RSA.
And Lord Windermere was half-length off Texas Jack at Leopardstown in January, the same Texas Jack who was third, 17 lengths adrift of Back In Focus and Aupcharlie on the same course a month earlier.
I say ‘the same’ Texas Jack but we can never be sure of fitness in relation to ability on the day, nor of the reliability of those finishing distances in different races: for example, Dynaste was eased down in his nine lengths defeat of Hadrians Approach.
What we can say is that a difference of 2.57 Dynaste and 8.2 Aupcharlie on BETDAQ this morning is plain wrong. The 8.2 is clearly good value, with the Aupcharlie stable – that of a certain W Mullins – in full cry at the meeting and which won this race last year with Sir Des Champs.
What must also be said is that Dynaste’s trainer, David Pipe, has been lacking at the festival so far. It almost always pays to be with trainers in form, so – hey up, Charlie! – I’m putting my neck on the line and making the Mullins beast my nap from a BETDAQ orange which adds up to an underround (99%) as I write. Punter friendly or what!
LAY 10pts DYNASTE and JACKPOT BET (to win 30 points): 4.2pts win (nap) AUPCHARLIE
2.05 Cheltenham (Pertemps Hurdle Final). Another handicap which has tightened up. Eight of the last nine winners of this carried 10st 11lb or less. This year, in the ultra-short handicap, there is not a single runner below 10st 13lb.
It should mean more near-top-class races of quality for those who didn’t make the cut in races like this, but far too much money goes on mediocre midweek racing, so it doesn’t happen.
The punter finds it difficult to get an edge today as, incredibly, 17 runners in this final have ratings between 135 and 140. It may as well be a conditions race.
Sam Winner is a false favourite here. Though he was going well – albeit in a small field – when he came down over 2m 5f at Wincanton, he has never even tried 3m before. He may get it; he may win it; but you can’t bet on potential at 5.6 in a 24-runner race even when the champion trainer tells some all-agog Press boys that he’s his banker of the meeting. Saver only.
Dessie Hughes has had three horses placed at the festival this week and Stonemaster is capably of a place. Fair Along will run his usual big race but another old-timer, Catch Me, would have appealed more – beaten less than a length in the race last year – but has drifted like a lonely dog on a raft this morning, over the betting weir to 64.0.
His owner, J P McManus, has been talking up his other runner, Shutthefrontdoor, the choice of A P McCoy, though he worries about the six-year-old’s inexperience (six novices have won in the last 20 years). Proven at the trip so 8.2 on BETDAQ is acceptable.
Jonjo O’Neill’s other runner, first-time-blinkered Holywell, comes from all the right prep races and is ‘wrong’ at 28.0. But the other one I like is Jetson, whose recent CV shows a clear preparation for this, having missed the cut when fancied last year. Tasty at 11.5.
JACKPOT BETS (to win 30 points): 4pts win SHUTTHEFRONTDOOR, 2.8pts win JETSON, and 1.1pts win HOLYWELL, with 1.4pts win (stakes saver) SAM WINNER
2.40 Cheltenham (Ryanair Chase): Though Champion Court has a stone to find on official figures, the ground has dried for him and I’m pleased with the 12.0 I took on BETDAQ ante-post about the King George fourth.
Cue Card, second to the haloed Sprinter Sacre in the Arkle a year ago, prefers today’s trip, having faded in the closing stage at Kempton.
Last year’s one-two, Riverside Theatre and Albertas Run, are getting long in the tooth and may not have the bite of RSA runner-up First Lieutenant, who swerves the Gold Cup for this.
It’s a race that looks much harder than the offers of 3.45 First Lieutenant but he has to be my saver to the Champion Court bet.
JACKPOT (ante-post) BET to win 30 points: 2.7pts win CHAMPION COURT at 12.0. Now have 1.2pts (stakes) saver FIRST LIEUTENANT
3.20 Cheltenham (World Hurdle): After the Champion Court ‘overs’, this column’s 16.0 Bog Warrior on BETDAQ also looks handy but my luck has been out with my ante-post ‘theft’ so far.
There is very little to choose between Oscar Whisky and Reve De Sivola – a neck at Cheltenham in January – and that doesn’t shout ‘champion’ for either of them. Solwhit will find this ground too lively.
So I’m trying a real humdinger: it’s my belief that So Young has matured and found form at the highest level after struggling to get his feet on the Grade-1 ladder. A massive 31.0 this morning
You see, the stats say that, when we find a new champion, he will be six or seven years old (as in the case of Barracouda 7, Inglis Drever 6 and Big Buck’s 6) at the time of his first success.
JACKPOT (ante-post) BET to win 30 points: 2.1pts win BOG WARRIOR at 16.0. Now have 1pt win and place SO YOUNG
4.0 Cheltenham (Byrne Group Plate) Venetian Williams, currently enjoying a super-successful season, has twice won this Byrne Group Plate which is a much longer handicap of 23lb from 134 at the bottom to 157 at the top.
Her two winners came off ratings of 136 and 139 and, in fact, seven out of nine winners of this have struck from the narrow band of 130 to 139.
Inside that parameter this year, Venetia had five of her 15 entries: she left in Kapga De Cerisy, 16.5 this morning.
Ballynagour, whose stable has taken two of the last three runnings, was a revelation at Warwick, treating a class-2 field with disdain but will this soft-ground French horse be the same article on the better surface?
Walkon’s local yard had a winner yesterday. Hunt Ball has his ground but it’s probably gone against Cantlow and Vino Griego
BET 2.30pts win HUNT BALL, 1.3pts win KAPGA DE CERISY, 1.2pts win WALKON and 1pt win (stakes saver) BALLYNAGOUR
4.40 Chelteham (Kim Muir) Horses aged eight and nine have won in 12 of the last 15 seasons. In three of the last four years, the winner carried between 11st 6lb and 11st 12lb., the quartet winning off ratings of 142, 134, 140 and 139.
The eye is immediately drawn to Deal Done, who was third in the race off a similar mark in 2011 for the Dessie Hughes yard which has already had two seconds and a third at the meeting this week. But the ground may have gone against him (out to 48.0 on BETDAQ).
Galaxy Rock (15.50) also does well at Cheltenham. Harry The Viking, another drifter to 33.0, has at last got his ground (Vesper Bell hasn’t), though his target is the Grand National.
Super Duty has the advantage of Derek Connor in the plate, Chartreux (19.5) of Jamie Codd (winner of two of the last four).
I’ve always been lucky with Romanesco, grabbing the odds at the right time (ignore, for instance, his run over hurdles last time) and I shall have a bit of the 10.5 I see on BETFDAQ.
BET 3.3pts win SUPER DUTY, 2.1pts win ROMANESCO, 1.3pts win GALAXY ROCK
5.15 Cheltenham (Cross Country): Enda Bolger, who saddled the two giants of this discipline, Spot Thedifference and Garde Champetre, has Arabella Boy perfectly placed at the weights to return him to the winners’ enclosure for the first time since those heady days.
The question-mark over the Boy is: does he stay? We have been robbed of the answer several times: when, making headway, he was brought down in the La Touche, won by Uncle Junior, and both he and Uncle Junior unseated rider in the December cross-country over today’s course and distance, won by Outlaw Pete.
Four of the winners outside the Bolger big two in the last decade had been beaten in that December race, as was Bostons Angel (10.0 on BETDAQ), now 15lb better off with Outlaw Pete for seven lengths. The former RSA winner is the handicap snip of the day.
JACKPOT BETS (to win 30 points): 6.8pts win ARABELLA BOY and 3.3pts win BOSTONS ANGEL
DAQMAN’S BETS SUMMARY
LAY 10pts DYNASTE and JACKPOT BET (to win 30 points): 4.2pts win AUPCHARLIE (1.30 Cheltenham)
JACKPOT BETS (to win 30 points): 4pts win SHUTTHEFRONTDOOR and 2.8pts win JETSON, and 1.1pts win HOLYWELL with 1.4pts win (stakes saver) SAM WINNER (2.05 Cheltenham)
JACKPOT (ante-post) BET to win 30 points: 2.7pts win CHAMPION COURT at 12.0. Now have 1.2pts (stakes) saver FIRST LIEUTENANT (2.40 Cheltenham)
JACKPOT (ante-post) BET to win 30 points: 2.1pts win BOG WARRIOR at 16.0. Now have 1pt win and place SO YOUNG (3.20 Cheltenham)
BET 2.30pts win HUNT BALL, 1.3pts win KAPGA DE CERISY, 1.2pts win WALKON and 1pt win (stakes saver) BALLYNAGOUR (4.00 Cheltenham)
BET 3.3pts win SUPER DUTY, 2.1pts win ROMANESCO, 1.3pts win GALAXY ROCK (4.40 Cheltenham)
JACKPOT BETS (to win 30 points): 6.8pts win ARABELLA BOY and 3.3pts win BOSTONS ANGEL (5.15 Cheltenham)
HORSES TO FOLLOW: Dynaste (1.30 Cheltenham)
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