DAQMAN NAP STEADY AT AROUND 5-1 IN THE BETDAQ OFFERS: Star names at Clonmel but what can we expect? The local horse is favourite at Wincanton but will he deliver? Daqman’s final verdict for the nap is one high in the weights but lower in class than his alternative route this week. And he’s been steady at around 5-1 in the BETDAQ offers.
TOMORROW: Daqman previews the two-day Tingle Creek meeting which starts tomorrow.
TOTAL COMMITMENT EXPECTED
12.40 Clonmel Total Recall stands out here, as one who has previously switched from fences to hurdles with a win, and one who is hooded for business this afternoon.
Goes well fresh with no near Christmas target to prevent his fully exerting himself today, hovering around 4.6 in the BETDAQ orange.
Rathvinden, in his first hurdle since 2014, and third when my choice in the Grand National, is headed for the Savills Chase at Leopardstown (December 28).
Class Conti targets a Grade-B chase at the same Leopardstown meeting a day earlier. It’s nearly three years since The Storyteller (multiple Christmas entries) got off the mark over hurdles and has failed over fences in the last year.
HE’S A COPPER-BOTTOMED BET
1.30 Wincanton (Silver Buck Chase): Winners have come from the top of the handicap (11st 11lb to 12st 1lb), two of them five-year-olds. Those stats point up Copperhead, around 5-1 in the BETDAQ orange.
Looking a stronger horse when he reappeared in his first steeplechase at Chepstow in October, the back-to-back hurdles winner could have gone to Chepstow on Saturday off 10st 12lb in a much tougher race, though officially at the same level, class 3.
He should overcome a favourite, El Presente, who has just a maiden hurdle to his name, and a host of lesser types – albeit some of them winners – in among the 10.0 bar two.
Coopers Square has barrels of experience, landing five in a row, still standing, in the Spring, four of them chases of class 4 and 5, preferring a left-handed track but finding good ground ideal.
With a liking to lead, Marble Moon’s own treble bid came unstuck on the soft at Ludlow, but he too should enjoy the return to a sounder surface today.
Cesar Et Rosalie won a class 2 chase at Uttoxeter in May but the race hasn’t worked out. Findusatgatcome’s dual success in the West Country has cost him a rise of exactly a stone, as he attempts a hat-trick.
SCARAMANGA HAS GOLDEN GUN
2.05 Wincanton: The last three winners of this handicap hurdle were claimed off; three out of four were aged six and three out of four were hot favourites.
The unexposed Paul Nicholls runner, Scaramanga (BETDAQ 4.6), who is on his home track on ground he likes, was disappointing under a senior jockey in a class-2 hurdle for four-year-olds at Chepstow in October.
But he ran Listed hurdles winner Gumball close on the Flat in the Spring, and some of these today have managed to see only the rear end of Gumball over hurdles, looking the wrong way through a telescope.
Humble Hero did good in the novices’ championship final at Sandown in April, after falling as an odds-on favourite first run back.
He faded out of it, attempting the Grade-3 Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham in November (‘moral winner’ was Gumball, beaten a neck, giving weight to the winner).
Humble Hero’s stablemate, King d’Argent, another four-year-old, hated the soft-heavy autumn ground and could do better. Flashing Glance is also a top-of-the-ground player.
Purple King has so far failed to step up from novice class; Capone’s reappearance runs in the autumn were disappointing; and the stable of Milkwood and Novis Adventus is hit and miss.
DAQMAN’S BETS
12.40 Clonmel (win 20)
BET 5.5pts win TOTAL RECALL
1.30 Wincanton (win 30)
BET 6pts win (nap) COPPERHEAD
2.05 Wincanton (win 20)
BET 5.5pts win SCARAMANGA
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