IS ECLIPSE AS EASY AS ABC? Is the Eclipse all over bar the shouting? Stranger things than defeat for Golden Horn have happened in racing, and the stats in Daqman’s ABC Guide reveal a dark horse and one that’s already beaten a Derby winner.
AN 8.4 NAP AT CHEPSTOW: Today he turns up a winner of a race last year at Chepstow which is overlooked in the betting for tonight’s meeting. A daring nap at 8.4 in the morning BETDAQ market.
ABC GUIDE: GOLDEN ECLIPSE OR DARK HORSE?
3.45 Sandown, Saturday (Eclipse Stakes): It’s not over until the fat lady sings. Or, in this case, until Golden Horn trumpets his worth again, if he can add to his dual Derby success.
But, as the stats reveal, it’s the older horses that have set up the sequence in this race, including defeat of Derby winners in the process. There are questions to be answered:
CAN Golden Horn keep on producing the acceleration that left behind a five-lengths Irish Derby winner up the Epsom hill?
CAN The Grey Gatsby have one of his fabulous ’on’ days? He beat a Derby winner in last year’s Irish Champion Stakes.
CAN Aidan O’Brien (Qualify and Diamondsandrubies) pull another rabbit out of the hat with Cougar Mountain, having already produced the seeming impossible, certainly improbable, as Qualify’s 50-1 SP goes to show? ABC Guide:
A Winner of Group 1 (11 out of 12)
B Rated at least 122 (8 out of 10)
C Aged four or five (8 out of 10)
D Ran at Epsom or Royal Ascot (16 out of 17)
ABCD The Grey Gatsby
Group-1 winner twice, in last year’s French Derby and Irish Champion Stakes (beat Australia). Acts on any ground but soft.
He’s defending the run of the older horses who have won this race five times in a row, eight of the last 10, beating the Irish Derby winner in last year’s race.
Defeated all three starts this term and dropped by the handicapper to 123 but 127 restored after short-head defeat by Free Eagle in cracking Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
ABD Golden Horn
Came to prominence in the Dante Stakes with gun-barrel drive while stablemate Jack Hobbs was showing immature indecision.
But ‘Goldie’ beat the same horse by a much wider margin with a scintillating run up the hill-finish of the Epsom Derby, and Jack Hobbs franked the form with a runaway Irish Derby win at The Curragh.
The only big-time three-year-old to take an Eclipse in nine seasons was Sea The Stars, who that day beat the Epsom Derby fourth and the subsequent King George winner, Conduit (aged four).
CD Cougar Mountain
Aidan O’Brien, who has the dual Guineas colt Gleneagles (by Galileo) and the fillies Qualify and Diamondsandrubies this year in his Classic-generation set, relies on Cougar Mountain, a son of Fastnet Rock, the sire responsible for the two fillies’-Classic winners in the trio.
Cougar Mountain is four. The dark horse. He stuck to sprinting as a three-year-old, getting within two or three lengths of July Cup and Nunthorpe winners.
This year’s best effort was a big step up, beaten little more than a length in third behind Solow in the Queen Anne (1m) at Royal Ascot, staying on late in first-time cheekpieces, behind him a Guineas winner and a Lockinge one-two
CD Western Hymn
Sixth in last year’s Derby, this stablemate of Golden Horn has won twice over the Sandown CD this year, taking the Group-3 trophies, Brigadier Gerard Stakes and Gordon Richards Stakes.
Still lightly raced, start number 10 on his CV was when, trapped out wide, he was not disgraced third, as Free Eagle and The Grey Gatsby fought out a right royal finish to the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Ascot.
D Tullius
The old man of the party, has Sandown form figures of 1214, on the last day there seven-lengths fourth to Western Hymn in the Gordon Richards Stakes over the CD.
That was a rare attempt beyond a mile, having won the actual Sandown Mile last Spring, showing his liking for an easy surface.
LAST YEAR’S WINNER ANNALUNA HUGE AT 8.4
3.15 Hamilton Theoretically, as the ground gets faster in the heat, older horses losing their speed are likely to struggle. At the same time, three-year-olds are strengthening and coming through to take advantage of their allowances.
Northside Prince is nine now and has won only once in five years. At eight, Latin Rebel won his first ever race on the last day. They are most unlikely winners here.
Clear Spell, the ‘moral’ at Musselburgh last backend, beaten a neck giving weight to the winner, is disguised, after opening his season on the wrong ground and then last time over the wrong trip. He drops in class here, hence the 10st burden.
Kerrymerry has improved a stone this month, according to the official ratings and he, too, was the ‘moral’, giving weight, beaten narrowly, on the last day.
More Mischief, another three year old, is very lightly raced and, with his allowance, could well go on the attack (made all on this course in May, though that was on soft).
As a CD winner, Northside Prince’s stablemate, Stanarley Pic, cannot be left out of the reckoning. But I shall go with the second-season animals, taking Kerrymerry’s 5.1 on the drying ground and saving on More Mischief.
4.00 Brighton Three-year-olds have won five of the last seven runnings of this race, one of them for Ed Dunlop, who saddles Kitten’s Red here.
Kitten’s Red won a slow-run race on fast ground at Bath and the form is hard to assess, though the facts are that he beat Keen Move only narrowly, whereas Offshore (4.0 on BETDAQ as I write) kicked that one into touch at Lingfield (AW).
Retro Valley is paying the penalty for back-to-back success in May. Duke Street is likely to make the running but has always raced on easy ground on turf or on the softer-surface AW tracks.
4.30 Brighton Animals of 14, nine, eight and seven (three of them) can be expected to struggle in a race never won by horses over the age of five.
The 14-year-old Megalala defied the odds a fortnight ago, has scored six times at Brighton and, through the one she beat that day at Lingfield, has authority over half a dozen if these if he can repeat the feat.
As punters, we are happy to cheer the unusual but inclined to bet against them on that very point: ‘unusual’ means ‘don’t happen very often’ (and that means you are unlikely to win if you keep betting on them).
Brighton is the worst course in the world for me so, if you say, ‘come on the grandad, stick it up Daqman’s Megalala’, I shall not mind a bit.
In fact, all criticism faced by you or I as backers, whether justified or not, misses the whole point: we are betting to win in the long run, so we want the odds on our side.. then the winners outweigh the losers in our wallet.
Despite being stepped up in trip, Honey Badger probably went to the front too soon last time on today’s course, and was run out of it by a head, with the third nine lengths away. He’ll do for me to protect my Megalala.
8.10 Chepstow Here’s another race in which the older brigade may be reduced to plodders but the likely favourite, Cosette, does not appeal from a long losing run, winner only on the soft.
I think we’ll see a different Annaluna, out of form recently but winner of this last year when landing back-to-back success on the course on top of the ground: 8.4 is far too big in the BETDAQ orange this morning.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked 1 to 9 for strength)
BET 6pts win ST GEORGE’S CROSS (2.15 Hamilton)
BET 5pts win KERRYMERRY and 3pts win (stakes saver) MORE MISCHIEF (3.15 Hamilton)
BET 6pts win OFFSHORE (4.00 Brighton)
BET 4pts win HONEY BADGER (4.30 Brighton)
BET 6pts win TASLEET (6.10 Chepstow)
BET 1pt win and place GENTLEMAN ANSHAN (8.00 Stratford)
BET 7pts win (nap) ANNALUNA (8.10 Chepstow)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 3 x 1pt win doubles and 1pt win treble ST GEORGE’S CROSS (2.15 Hamilton), TASLEET (6.10 Chepstow) and ANNALUNA (8.10 Chepstow)
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