BACK-TO-BACK ASCOT NAPS: After a first-day banker on Kingman (WON 8-11), Daqman yesterday napped Integral (WON 9-4) for a 100% record at Royal Ascot. His Bull’s Eye-Bet is also 100% after Hootenanny (WON 7-2 from 7.0 on BETDAQ on the opening day)
11-2 WIN IN BIG-RACE ONE-TWO: Daqman named the one-two (The Fugue WON 11-2 and Magician 2nd 6-1) over beaten odds-on favourite, Treve, and he pipped Racing Post man Pricewise 3-2 to go 5-3 up at the meeting.
LANDMARK 80 UP OVER PRICEWISE: His other return yesterday was from a place on Sea Shanty (4th 14-1 from 20.0 on BETDAQ). His overall profit at the meeting is 63 points, and his total scores over Pricewise now 41-12 on the Flat (a landmark 80-24 overall).
A BETTER DEAL FROM BETDAQ: Says Daqman: ‘Bookies claiming they are behind at Royal Ascot forgot to mention how they hiked the take-out on Day 2, with up to 131, 135, and 142% Total SPs. Four races early mouse in the BETDAQ orange this morning totalled 102 and 103%. Get on!’
BALLYDOYLE MIGHT LOSE THE WAR
2.30 Royal Ascot (Norfolk Stakes) Aidan O’Brien has gone 11 straight defeats at Royal Ascot – and a disqualification at lowly Wexford – and this is a race he’s won only once (2001).
As sire of two-year-olds, War Front is living off his Dewhurst winner, War Command, and the Curragh second and third behind his son, The Great War, have revealed themselves a long, long way behind Ascot form.
Mukhmal also won on firm, albeit making all on the frying-pan Chester circuit, a different ball-game to the straight and demanding 5f today.
However, he won from the worst possible outside draw that day and his runner-up, Roudee, just over four lengths behind the Queen Mary runner-up, Tiggy Wiggy, when they met at Sandown, was little more than six lengths off Hootenanny in the Windsor Castle. That’s about right for this contest.
Peter Chapple-Hyam, who won this in 2006 and 2007, is another on a long losing run, but that’s not unusual for him, and Ahlan Emarati showed at Bath that he has more than one gear.
Most impressive so far was probably Baitha Alga, Woodcote winner at Epsom (6f) over five previous winners, though Team Hannon had the Coventry in mind for him, eventually running two others down the field.
He was alarmingly easy to back this morning on the firm ground. So, too, Wesley Ward’s American filly, To Be Determined, Ward having won the Norfolk last year with No Nay Never.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: The Great War, a shade of odds on this morning, is entitled to improve – as are all the others at this stage in their careers – but, on what we know, Mukhmal is the wrong price at offers of 6.0 on BETDAQ as I write.
OBLITERATOR FOR THE LYONS’ SHARE
3.05 Royal Ascot (Tercentenary Stakes) Unless Sir Michael Stoute has turned barrow boy (‘cheaper at half the price’), we are bound to be caught up in his sales pitch for Cannock Chase – ‘a great chance’ – while the Hannons ‘still have great faith’ in Barley Mow.
Barley Mow should again hold Mutakayyef, back to the trip and conditions of their one-two at Newmarket but, on Feilden Stakes form, cannot beat Obliterator, whose trainer, Ger Lyons, went mighty close to a coup in the Coventry on Tuesday.
And Craven Stakes third, Postponed, who had a rear view of Barley Mow at Newmarket, is likely to improve now that Luca Cumani’s yard has struck form.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: I’m again taking a tentative approach, with a win and place bet, but my excuse for each way is that I have an eight-horse race and 7.0 about Obliterator on BETDAQ.
VAZIRA HAS HIDDEN ZIP FOR RIBBLESDALE
3.45 Royal Ascot (Ribblesdale Stakes) Soft-ground and Polytrack winners line up for this Ascot Oaks on Ascot-fast ground. What chance has the punter got!
Well, his choice could rest with firm-ground winners Lustrous and Terrific, or he could search the breeding and find that the one most likely to be inconvenienced by it is Emaratiya Ana, and that Talmada, Vazira and Wonderstruck are by sires who pass on a propensity for winning on firmer ground.
Inchila is the form filly for Mr Laid Back himself, Peter Chapple-Hyam: she was fourth in the real thing, the Epsom Oaks, after an unlucky run.
The third when Vazira was second in the Saint-Alary has since finished a long way back in the French Oaks but we are talking soft ground and Vazira’s sire, Sea The Stars, has a 25% strike rate for his progeny on firm.
He has another daughter, Wonderstruck, coming here on the back of a maiden, which contained only one other winner. She’s officially 22lb behind Vazira, who is rated the equal of Inchila.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: Alain de oyer-Dupre is probably several pounds, avoir dupois, behind Peter Chapple-Hyam but I think the ground will tip the scales in Vazira’s favour, her true ability currently hidden by the soft ground she has encountered at home.
PUNTERS SHOULD SEE THE LIGHT
4.25 Royal Ascot (GOLD CUP, see Monday’s ABC Guide in the Archive). Like Aidan O’Brien, Tom Dascombe couldn’t win a donkey Derby so far this week, with 17 consecutive losers, and the man in form, Sir Michael Stoute, has publicly stated that he’s had trouble getting Estimate ready this year.
Yet this training trio have the dual winner of Queens Vase and St Leger, Leading Light, last year’s golden girl, Estimate, and the continual improver, Brown Panther as the glister on today’s gold.
I think Panther is first to go here: all his major success, including his fine double this year of Ormonde and Henry 11 Stakes, has been on soft or genuinely good ground. It’s fast today; Ascot fast.
And, even if she is right, Estimate last year beat horses of the calibre 108, 113 and 114, but she this year faces 118, 117, 117, 115 and 114 rated, so must show not only that she is 100% but that the Stoute knack of improving his older horses has rubbed off on her.
In fact, the market says that Estimate – 11.0 on BETDAQ early mouse this morning – can also be eliminated, with Altano coming into the reckoning, as a winner at this maratho trip already in the French Gold Cup, with the French silver medallist, Tac De Boistron, in tow.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: Punters struggling to find something to beat Leading Light who are looking to the eight-year-old Altano must go back to 1900 to find another first-time winner his age, Merman ridden by Tod Sloan.
Yes, Yeats won it at eight but we are talking a phenomenon who was completing a four-timer (2006-9) and eight of the last 10 winners have been four, five or six.
Though I despise such aids myself in Classic and Gold Cup animals, cheekpieces helped Ballydoyle win last year’s Derby with Ruler of The W orld anf the Queen’s Vase here on firm ground with Leading Light.
And I fancy first-time blinkers could put the 2012 third, Saddler’s Rock, back in the frame in his third Gold Cup.
DECISIVE DRAW FOR THIRD DIMENSION
5.00 Royal Ascot (Britannia Handicap) High numbers dominated the straight-mile races yesterday, with the Royal Hunt Cup first eight by draw 33, 14, 23, 29, 16, 15, 28, 22, and the Sandringham Stakes first seven 22, 18, 24, 20, 8, 19, 23.
And, if you are still not convinced, the Britannia result by stall last year was 15, 12, 24, 30, 20, 16, 33, 25. It all seems to put the race out of reach to the Ballydoyle hat-trick seeker, Table Rock (drawn 6).
Third Dimension, in stall 31 today, beat Table Rock at Limerick in April and Ger Lyons’ Dubawi colt out of a Cape Cross mare is bred to appreciate a sound surface.
Third Dimension and Table Rock are the only horses in the race Group entered. Beau Nash, Bilimbi, Bow Creek and Legend Rising seem certain to take the high numbers along. Bilimbi has the right weight.
DAQMAN’S VERDICT: Third Dimension and Bilimbi are two against the field at 18.0 and 12.0 respectively this morning. Just my luck if the draw should favour the other side! So I’ll take Hors De Combat (12.5) to take that side down the middle.
DAQMAN’S BETS (profit targets are as stated)
BET (to win 20): 4pts win and place MUKHMAL (2.30 Royal Ascot)
BET (to win 20): 3.3pts win and place OBLITERATOR (3.05 Royal Ascot)
BET (to win 30): 10pts win VAZIRA (3.45 Royal Ascot)
BANKER and Bull’s Eye Bet to win 50 points: BET 25pts win LEADING LIGHT (4.25 Royal Ascot)
BET (to win 30 points): 2.5pts win on each BILIMBI and HORS DE COMBAT, and 1.75pts win and place THIRD DIMENSION (5.00 R oyal Ascot)
BET (to win 20): 2.5pts win PERSONAL OPINION and 1.8pts win ALEX MY BOY (5.35 Royal Ascot)
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