HUGE DOUBLE STRIKE FOR DAQMAN: After smashing Chester with eight hits last week, Daqman opened York yesterday with 68 points from two huge winners, taking a long lead (18-8) over Pricewise. So that’s FIFTEEN Daqman strikes in eight days and the list too long to repeat here; you’ll have to look back at yesterday’s column!
WON 18-1 SOUL SISTER (Musidora Stakes)
WON 12-1 BIELSA (from 16.5 taken on BETDAQ)
TODAY HE STARTS WITH A KORKER Daqman dares a 13.5 Fortune Cookie in the Dante Trial and supernaps a filly but first he has a Korker in the opening sprint.
FORTUNE COOKIES update We must surely add Soul Sister to the list
START WITH SPRINT KORKER
⭕ 1.50 York (5f handicap) Trying to read stalls trends, hoping to diagnose any bias, is not made easy when – having lost the favourite from a high gate – they started a race at York with three stands-side stalls empty.
As for the going, the ‘good’ forecast was soon out of the window, with jockeys reporting it ‘on the firm side’, and the sprints were run faster than average.
We’re straight into another sprint here, and noticeable that the jockeys wanted centre ground from the two pole yesterday.
Korker stands out as one who has enjoyed a sound surface and has had a run back on the wrong ground. What’s more he’s with Karl Burke, who’s had three winners, three seconds and a third from his last 11 starters.
Korker has won and been placed three times at York. Clarendon House is another sound-surface horse who does well at York but the stable is not in much form.
Betdaq Betting Exchange 7.4 Korker
FREE WIND’S MY SUPERNAP
⭕ 2.25 York (1m 2f Group-2 fillies) The mare Free Wind is very lightly raced but Team Gosden (10 winners in seven days) seems to catch her right and she is five from six, two at this level, the Park Hill and the Lancashire Oaks.
Aristia, second in this last year and to Nashwa in the Nassau Stakes, didn’t fully come in her coat until late season, but eventually won a Group 1 at Deauville.
In contrast, Sea Silk Road, second in the Ribblesdale, faded towards the end of the 2022 season, despite the addition of a tongue-tie.
Stay Alert is a Newbury-only winner on turf, while Toscana Belle has moved to Roger Varian from consistent form in Germany but with an absence of 243 days to overcome.
State Occasion’s similar absence and her handicap-only form gives her a tough task, 12lb behind Free Wind, who gets 3lb from Aristia, which just about seals the race. Supernap, just a shade of odds on this morning.
CHIPS DOWN FOR CROUPIER
⭕ 3.00 York (Hambleton Handicap, 1m) Extremes of the draw have won this, with gate 6 and the one stall three times, and gates 12 (twice) and 16 (three times) on the other side.
Eilean Dubh (now in 16) won a similar race from stall 3 last Spring, getting 8lb from the fourth, the freegoing Isla Kai (now in 18), who is 6lb better off but prefers it soft. Runner-up Blue For You is badly in with both, and has had a 215-day holiday.
Cruyff Turn (3) won the Hambleton from the one stall by a head from Brunch but isn’t in the same form and his stable’s first-day runners were friendless in the market: 20-1, 25-1, 40-1 and 66-1.
Julie Camacho, who saddles former Charlie Appleby AW hat-trick winner, Symbol of Light from the one stall, is also struggling, currently on 1-23, the gelding has been absent 476 days.
After steady progress last term, Croupier (gate 6), who reappeared in the Lincoln, could have a good season, and William Buick takes over from an apprentice.
A Sir Michael Stoute runner in a handicap still has the capacity to worry the layers and Assessment is priced to potential not performance at 4.4 in the BETDAQ exchanges. Said to have done ‘really well’ over the winter.
Northern Express won the Thirsk Hunt Cup but has found the York mile harder to get (form figures 0000).
BETDAQ value 4.3 Assessment, 9.8 Croupier, 10.5 Eilean Dubh
CONTINUOUS ‘COOKIE’ COUP
⭕ 3.35 York (Dante Stakes) See Monday preview
FORTUNE COOKIE: Continuous. It’s 13 years since Aidan O’Brien landed back-to-back wins in the Dante; neither colt was from the top of the pack.
Since then, aces have been played by Team Gosden (Golden Horn), Charlie Appleby (Hurricane Lane) and Sir Michael Stoute (Desert Crown), producing winners of two Epsom Derbys and one Curragh Derby.
Gosden’s Epictetus is an unusual runner today, as he’s already winner of a trial, the Blue Riband at Epsom.
Appleby’s Flying Honours is also exposed; three wins out of four since his debut but just a Group-3 success, though the handicapper sees him as just a pound inferior to Epictetus and Royal Lodge winner The Foxes, also five time raced, also rated 111, and bred for 1m 2f plus.
When they’re ‘all of a heap’ like that, you can expect an unknown to come through and take them.
So it is that I plotted to win it for Fortune Cookies with O’Brien’s Continuous, two from two but also only a Group-3 winner at this stage. But has the trainer plotted to win it, too? He was a big drifter this morning.
Meanwhile, punters have latched on to Canberra Legend, though his Feilden Stakes form has been let down by the runner-up.
And the Stoute hope, Passenger, has been punted ante-post for the Derby on the strength of just one run one win, and the potential to score this afternoon. Fascinating stuff, set to be as informative as the Musidora.
It could be, as so often before, the best trial for Epsom, with Epictetus giving us the form line, as runner-up (‘no chance with winner’) in the Futurity at Doncaster to Auguste Rodin.
BETDAQ value 6.3 The Foxes, 13.5 Continuous
9.4 THE SILENT WHISPER
⭕ 4.10 York (5f Listed) Six winners from the low four stalls, and Kevin Ryan in my good books after Bielsa yesterday.
His filly Silent Words (3) seems best of the low draw; daughter of a good-ground Group winner, her sire was runner-up in the Kings Stand Stakes on firm.
Wallbank is a CD winner, runner-up in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot on the firm, but not seen since Molecomb third at Goodwood.
Rocket Rodney was Windsor Castle runner-up to Little Big Bear but his form tailed off, not much revived by first–time blinkers, when he was beaten favourite, seventh, at Longchamp after being losing favourite here, too, at York in a Listed.
Hispanic also needed blinkers last backend; they worked first time at the Curragh but failed him at Doncaster. Said to need the run after a set-back.
Great State has been progressive but is asked to jump two grades this time; Changeofmind four grades!
BETDAQ value 9.4 Silent Words
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.50 York (win 25)
BET 4pts win KORKER
2.25 York (supernap)
BET 20pts win FREE WIND
3.00 York (win-50 twice and win 33)
BET 5.5pts win CROUPIER
BET 5pts win EILEAN DUBH
BET 10pts win ASSESSMENT
3.35 York
FORTUNE COOKIE
BET 20pts win CONTINUOUS
BET 5pts win (saver) THE FOXES
4.10 York (win 33)
BET 4pts win SILENT WORDS
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