PUNTERS ARE THE LOSERS IN TACTICAL RACING: Saturday’s King George is a match race between Aidan O’Brien and John Gosden as all other trainers drop out. Another shock result like the one in the Derby is on the cards, and Daqman argues that the losers in such tactical racing are the punters as the big-time owners and trainers clean up.
MARK THIS RETURN OF THE DAQMAN SUPERNAP: Daqman searches Chepstow this afternoon and Sandown tonight and decides to make a Sir Mark Prescott sequence horse his first supernap since before the lockdown. He also tilts at a Nicky Henderson hurdler who could be on a payback mission for Nico De Boinville.
KING GEORGE: WAITING FOR GODOT
⭕ 3.35 Ascot, Saturday (King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth Stakes) Ascot is a theatre of the absurd on Saturday, when Aidan O’Brien could saddle six against John Gosden’s two in this King George. No other runners.
We’re waiting for Godot as one or two are not certain, particularly Sovereign. He may have only four or five starters (then there’ll be enough prizemoney for everybody).
The loser every time is the punter. He knows there could be a runaway, as we saw with Serpentine in the Irish Derby, when (it’s since been revealed) that’s the way the colt was intended to be ridden. Or as Gosden himself said: The Derby could now be won by a National Hunt horse.
Gosden’s star supreme, the dual Arc winner Enable, is the target, though O’Brien insists that no one horse is targeted as such. But it depends what you mean by ‘target’.
If there is an O’Brien runaway, then Enable has to lie up, or potentially forfeit the race. Jockeys know to measure a race by furlong, by stride and by the clock in their heads.
But Serpentine changed the rules; and anything that goes hell for leather can change the race completely if, when the others are saving themselves for a late run, the leader is then asked for a sudden aggressive injection of pace.
The seeming passivity of horses and jockeys behind is then revealed, as shown in the sectional timing, exactly what happened at Epsom.
That’s the trick. The question (to be answered in future performance) is: do you need a champion to do that, or can any horse with a reserve of stamina that has gone clear insert extra pace at the right time and hold on under pressure?
Has he then shot his bolt for life, as happens so often in other extreme performances, such as winning the Grand National?
At the point of any pressing on again from the front, Enable and the immediate pack will face a double dilemma: to chase hard or to provide a slipstream for challengers who are inevitably stayers.
That, again, is what happened at Epsom, and supposed no-hopers at 50-1 and 66-1 ran into the places. At Ascot, there will be another inevitability: they will be stablemates of the aggressive leader.
Even in a ‘normal race’, and Enable is held up in the pack, will she be able to get through? If she runs the rail, her rider, Frankie Dettori, faces the threat of a Ballydoyle mob descending like locusts, however right and proper they are racing.
Punters are not given any information as to tactics, or they might have viewed Serpentine quite differently, and for the King George they can only guess at individual tactics.
That’s what I’ll try to do tomorrow in my ABC guide. I’ll race the horses round the way they would normally travel. If ‘normal’ is the right word any more.
SUPERNAP’S RETURN: IT’S A PLEASURE
⭕ 3.00 Stratford Though Gunnery tried to leap two hurdles grades from scoring at Doncaster to a class-2 at Sandown in January, a race named after Nico De Boinville’s own blog, the money was down.
Nico, who rides him again today, chose him over the subsequent 14-1 winner from the same yard, with the excuse for Gunnery that the race had come too soon, just six days after his 12-lengths romp on Town Moor.
There are cases to be made for Scorched Earth, who has bags of potential as a four-year-old, and for Some Day Soon in first-time cheekpieces.
⭕ 4.50 Chepstow Striking at a phenomenal 75%, Sir Mark Prescott, the knight who plays chess with the handicapper, is back setting up his sequence horses, like Revolver, four in a row yesterday.
Super-confident punts, odds on both times, has seen Pleasure Garden, score back-to-back success at Leicester and Catterick, ’always doing enough’, as the racereaders have recorded.
That shouts more to come, despite the latest 6lb penalty, and Luke Morris looks set to land the hat-trick. It’s the return of the supernaps.
LOOK OUT! THE ENEMY’S ABOUT..
⭕ 6.40 Sandown Britannia fourth Enemy, half-brother to Group-1 winners up to 1m 4f, including an Oaks heroine, must surely benefit from this step up in trip and drop in class.
Sea Trout Reach should also go on improving but there is no suggestion in the pedigree that this is the right move as to trip, though of course it is right to test the scope of an animal of this level with such as the Cambridgeshire on the horizon.
Amir Kabir could take advantage of the handicap mark. Compare with It’s Good To Laugh who has continually risen in the ratings for three seconds in a row! It must surely be a tough life now.
⭕ 7.15 Sandown Mark Johnston has won this two-year-old test twice in the last five years, and Dubai Fountain could be another.
Mark is the man to tell you all about pace off the front of the pack; he’s the master of the art. And the horses often go on improving and sometimes do it again!
Dubai Fountain has every resource in her pedigree from top-class milers to hurdlers. Can she overcome what appear to be some classy types in the race?
The handicapper rates Fev Rover 10lb higher on the strength of her Group-2 head second at the July Meeting to Dandalla, who had beaten Setarhe six lengths in the Albany at Royal Ascot.
Richard Hannon muddies the waters with two runners which both ‘could be anything.’ Concessions (more experience) and Feathers.
DAQMAN’S TIPS
3.00 Stratford (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BET: 10pts win GUNNERY
4.50 Chepstow (supernap)
BET 20pts win PLEASURE GARDEN
6.40 Sandown (win 10)
BET 6pts win ENEMY
7.15 Sandown (win 10)
BET 2.5pts win DUBAI FOUNTAIN
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