EVEN-MONEY NAP UP: Theinval (won 1-1) has hopefully started a new winning nap sequence for Daqman, to be continued at Catterick this afternoon.
TWO HIDDEN GEMS: Daqman claims to have found two hidden gems today, though speculative because in beginners’ chases. It’s all part of the nerve-wracking life of a tipster which he discusses below.
‘OWN’ YOUR OWN HORSES BETTING KEY
Patient: Doctor, doctor, what’s paranoia?
Doctor (looking round): Who wants to know?
When you’re backing horses – worse still when you’re tipping them – you need eyes in the back of your head in a nerve-wracking competition to find invisible winners.
They are all there, but you don’t know exactly where, and you worry that others will pick them and you will miss them.
You have to read all the form and all of the comments (even though half the time they put you off as much as they put you right). So you improvise a checking sheet to try to make sure something doesn’t slip past you.
You have to be ‘in the swim’ the whole time. If you stop for a few days’ break, if you fail to do your ground baiting (little bets to keep your hand in), you miss the big fish that pass by so rarely.
If they do pass you by, punting paranoia sets in (it’s all going against me!) Or you get the yips (picking the winner, then changing your mind).
Worse still, you could get a serious attack of the Steve Palmer’s (taking a mighty swipe at something and spending all your hard-earned, all your credibility, in one go)!
Of course, generally speaking, you try to hold your composure and have confidence in your selections. You know that, if you stick to your methods, you surely will turn up winners, simply because you’ve done it before. Don’t be swayed by hearsay evidence from your mates or from waffle manufacturers, known as TV personalities. Above all, look for future champions.
So it is that every autumn, you hope to have a Cause Of Causes (see Library) or a Frodon (see yesterday), something at huge offers that others have ignored or have forgotten.
And all the time into the winter and through to the other side of the New Year, you are checking out more horses with big-odds potential for Cheltenham and the other Spring festivals at Aintree and Punchestown, trying to tease out a Rule The World (see Library), looking to find horses that the shrewd trainer is pedaling slowly with or hiding in plain sight.
Those ‘forgotten’ horses and the ‘hidden’ horses are almost always a big price. If you are going to give yourself a Christmas present in the next couple of weeks, you need to spot them, even if I miss them (particularly when I miss them).
In fact, I find that there are three ways to get ‘inside’ the form and spot the big-odds winners: the forgotten and the hidden, but also the ones you ’own,’ your stable.
HORSES TO FOLLOW: As I have done with my Fortune Cookies, pick your own string. They are not really yours but, if you treat them as such, you will start thinking the trainer’s way: what should I do with him, what distance, what track, what ground?
In following a small string of such horses, as if your own, you will also learn about the trainer, what his thinking is, what are his habits.
Did he do right about the horse you ‘own’?
Remember last year, this column ‘advised’ (I should be so lucky!) Willie Mullins to divert Vroum Vroum Mag to the Mares Hurdle at Cheltenham. It looked the obvious thing to do yet we were able to get 6.0 on BETDAQ.
That’s when to put your money where you mouth is; otherwise most ante-post betting is a way for bookmakers to make money on non-runners and with false probabilities (euphemistically called ‘odds’) that are miles too short for the numbers involved.
Result: Vroum Vroum Mag was switched to the Mares Hurdle and won at 6-4 on (SP). That 5-1 BETDAQ bet about a 4-6 result was a nice little earner.
FORTUNE COOKIES: I measure my own horses to follow, Fortune Cookies, by 20-point level stakes bets on each. We are 136 points up this Jumps season but I think you might now accept that, in following them, there is a big bonus in learning and concentrating on what’s what with them and their trainers.
Bankers are also recorded as 20-point bets (46 points profit so far). Like Fortune Cookies, they are recorded at SP. You can usually do better on BETDAQ: I don’t nominate bankers that are worse than 4-6 in the morning, giving you a return of two for every three you stake.
FORGOTTEN/HIDDEN HORSES: Don’t forget that Bull’s-Eye Bets (46 points up) are to recommended stakes, but bets in Pricewise races (Daqman 23 points ahead to single-unit stakes) are settled in the records at SP.
Unfortunately, offers won’t always last until race time, and no two punters are likely to get the same, so it would be unfair – though the Racing Post does it – to claim the morning price. We tell you what was and what is, not what might have been.
Outside the range of feature races and big events, you need to look for forgotten horses (like Whisper on Saturday) which, in the right hands (Henderson, Elsworth for instance) will suddenly bounce back. But, for me, Hidden Horses are best. More about them day by day (including below) and in this column later in the week.
LOOK AT CLOUDS FROM BOTH SIDES
My first golden rule on the tick list is class of race. You cannot be sure that animals in class 4 and lower will reproduce their recent form.
The trainer knows that such horses have to be prepared for one particular day when all the buttons are pressed. Sometimes he will wait months until an animal has the right weight, and it becomes a Hidden Horse.
First I’ll check out the class 3 or better races (there are none better today; just two class 3); among them hoping to find a ‘gem’, a possible future champion. Then I’ll search the lower echelons for some potentially hidden horses.
1.20 Catterick Oh dear; these are all ‘hidden horses’; some more than others in this class-3 chase because it’s for beginners, so they have all had very little – or no – exposure.
Bannys’s Lad (stable doing well right now) and Needless Shouting (stable doing badly) have never been seen in public over fences and their hurdles form was pretty desperate.
Delusionofgrandeur has had a couple of tries at chases of this level or better and Sue Smith – three winners from her last seven starters – does really well at Catterick.
But she seems to have a bigger opportunity through Vintage Clouds, a Graded hurdler, second in a class-2 novice chase on the last day but who is best boosted by his fences debut at Carlisle.
That was when the grey was second to hat-trick winner Briery Belle (Gully Edge behind). The step up in trip should suit him perfectly.
One Track Mind achieved a 158 over hurdles when winning the Ladbrokes’ Champion Stayers’ Hurdle (Grade 1) at the Punchestown festival in the Spring.
One Track Mind is bred in Jumping’s purple, by Flemensfirth out of a Beneficial mare, but flopped as favourite, jumping badly, last of nine, pitched in to a novice Grade-1 chase at Newbury at the Hennessy meeting.
Work In Progress was not quite up to this level over hurdles but didn’t do too badly on his chasing debut once he had settled in to his fences.
My verdict is that Vintage Clouds, a half-brother to the stable’s prolific winner, Vintage Star, is the gem we are looking for, and that One Track Mind holds the price up for us, though he’s really there for another day: today’s purpose is to get round.
2.10 Wincanton Same again! Another class 3; another beginners’ chase. This time Karl Marx, Robinsfirth, Sir Ivan and Connetable are making their debut over fences. The stables of Greybougg and Karl Marx are out of form.
Different Gravey ran a stinker in Whisper’s race or the horse he beat at Ascot, Brother Tedd, would be a short price here.
The trip should help Barney Dwan who has made a tired Horlicks of the final flight/fence in his last two starts over 3m.
Connetable is also expected to improve for the trip, another four-year-old (like Frodon) that Paul Nicholls is pitching into fences at a decent level, and is the only threat to Barney Dwan at the front of the BETDAQ orange as I write.
Connections of Brother Tedd and front-runner Wishing And Hoping are wishing and hoping that the rain stays away: they don’t want the ground too soft.
Verdict: If there is a gem in this race it is Robinsfirth, described by his trainer as ‘a horse with tremendous ability.’
He had stable stars Thistlecrack and Indian River (fell) behind in a Grade-2 hurdle at Cheltenham. Earlier had Different Gravey and Brother Tedd beaten off on the same course.
It’s a speculative Colin Tizzard shout at 10.0 on BETDAQ this morning, a decent place bet with three chances from eight, and with a strong favourite as saver.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 20 points)
BET 12pts win (nap) VINTAGE CLOUDS (1.20 Catterick)
BET 2.25pts win and place ROBINSFIRTH and 3pts win (stakes saver) BARNEY DWAN (2.10 Wincanton)
BET 5.5pts win ONWITHTHEPARTY (2.20 Catterick)
BET 6pts win AMANTIUS (3.10 Wincanton)
Did you know that as well as checking the realtime prices on BETDAQ below – you can also log into your account and place your bets directly into BETDAQ from BETDAQ TIPS.
