TERRIFIC 10 NAPS UP OUT OF 11: Daqman did it again yesterday with successful nap number 10 from the last 11, the biggest price yet. Ready Token (WON 9-4) boosted his profit from the sequence to 206 points – 94% return on outlay – from a level-stakes 20 points win on each.
WON 1-2 Shalaa (gold banker)
WON 10-11 Donna Graciosa (banker)
WON 5-6 Dark Emerald (banker)
WON 10-11 Kayla (banker)
3RD 6-1 Daisy Boy (winning place nap)
WON 11-10 Second Wave (nap)
2ND 6-4 Secateur (losing win nap)
WON 8-11 Vazirabad (banker)
WON 11-8 Esoterique (nap)
WON 6-4 Ballydoyle (nap)
WON 9-4 Ready Token (nap)
ANOTHER BIG READ FROM DAQMAN TODAY: Two ways to grab value on BETDAQ, plus the truth about Golden Horn, the ‘hidden horse’ at Leicester and a huge price for the nap tonight, all contained in today’s column:
* BETDAQ: CREATIVE BETTING AT YOUR FINGER TIPS
* JUST WHAT DOES GOLDEN HORN HAVE TO DO?
* ‘HIDDEN HORSE’ HOMAGE OVERPRICED AT 9.4
* 6.6 NAP EJBAAR BRED TO DO WELL AS A SPRINTER
LOOK OUT FOR THE CESAREWITCH ABC: Look out tomorrow and Thursday for his new bets, Top-Up Tips; more of the successful Hot Spots and previews of the weekend races, including his ABC Guide to the Cesarewitch.
BETDAQ: CREATIVE BETTING AT YOUR FINGER TIPS
Create your own market. And play to your own prices. That’s the message of the new BETDAQ 2% commission on offers.
Even if you are not a computer geek – using interface applications – you can make easy moves for better offers and be rewarded twice over: with a value price plus that commission bonus.
Know what odds you want about a horse. That’s the primary secret of betting to win. So, first task of the day is price up the race you are interested in.
No professional punter, or any value seeker, whatever the size of his stake, is ready to play if he doesn’t know what price he wants.
One simple way of pricing up is by comparing your opinion with, say, the paper price (what your newspaper or the Racing Post thinks is the likely market).
‘Nudge’ the odds in the betting forecast, according to your study of the form and opinion of the race. Reduce them where you think the price looks too big; extend them where they seem too small.
Now compare your prices with the offers in BETDAQ. Should you see what you think is a 3-1 chance (Horse A), offered at 6.0, you’ve got value.
If it’s the other way round, and you see in the same race your 5-1 chance (Horse B) offered at 4.0, you need a bigger offer in the orange before you are willing to back it. So why not ask for one!
Instead of accepting the existing offer, type in something nearer the offer you want, say 5.0, and hope to get it matched. If you do, you will then have this situation:
Horse A: price wanted 3-1 (that’s 25%); price taken 6.0 (that’s approx. 16.5%)
Horse B: price wanted 5-1 (16.5); offer in the orange 4.0 (25%); price you offered and got matched 5.0 (20%)
The 41.5% total percentage of the two horses you wanted has been massaged down to 36.5% and, in addition, you will get your commission reduced from 5% to 2% if the one you held out for wins.
It may be a strange business for most people to be backing prices instead of horses, as it were, but, if you can play like that in a ‘book’ (in this case, the punter-friendly orange), you can soon have it working for you.
My advice, whether taking the value, or extending the offers, is – before you start – check the total percentage in the Back list; it’s almost invariably printed in the orange strip that goes across the top of the list.
In creating my example, I was using the 4.00 Windsor yesterday at about 3.30 pm, when the orange added up to 102%.
That’s incredible value in itself, when you realise that most races have a Total SP of between 115% and 127%, some big-field races going way over the limit of decency to 147% this season.
If you bet in a punter-friendly 102% BETDAQ orange, you really can’t go wrong; you know that almost anything you back is value.
So why not try to tip the market further in your favour by making one or two bigger offers, as suggested by your pricing up and, with not much effort you could manipulate an underround (sub-100 ‘book’) and dock your commission at the same time.
Value betting in a value market at a lower commission rate. It’s that win-win-win Betdaq situation again.
JUST WHAT DOES GOLDEN HORN HAVE TO DO?
Golden Horn is not a superstar. That’s what Jim McGrath tells us this morning, eyes wide shut. And head-of-handicapping Phil Smith says he can only tinker with Golden Horn’s rating because he beat a horse (Flintshire) going into the race off 120, and he can’t raise everything behind.
This exposes some of the flaws in the business of assessing racehorses. First of all, ‘raising every thing behind’ is exactly what they did with Frankel, carried away by his effortless success (Daqman ibid).
Golden Horn has been campaigned from a mile to a mile and a half, winning Dante, Derby, Eclipse, Irish Champion Stakes and Arc, far more than Frankel ever ventured within the authorities’ own Pattern for success.
Secondly, despite this age of international racing, our ratings assessment for other countries, including France, falls short.
So it is that we went into the Lagardere without any rating for Ultra, the Foret without one for Make Believe, and the Arc on an old rating for Flintshire and no measure for New Bay.
In fact, there is a case for saying that, like our Grand National, horses that run well in the Arc will often do so again another year, and should be rated accordingly. Flintshire and Treve have run above expectations, the one last year, the other on Sunday.
Whose 120 was Flintshire but our own handicapper’s guesswork! I would suggest that his being runner-up in the Arc is infinitely better than his Sheema Class and Coronation Cup placings when he was 121-123 (according to us).
Just what has Golden Horn to do to achieve the mantle of greatness? Win a Breeders Cup? The running style that won him the Arc looks perfect for taking on the Americans at Keeneland. But I – and our handicappers – have no idea how he rates against them.
‘HIDDEN HORSE’ HOMAGE OVERPRICED AT 9.4
Rain has ruined my day. Changing ground is the worst time to bet. On the very subject of ratings, the overall figure for a horse may be misleading in any circumstances, but more so when it rains.
A professional punter who uses his own ratings has to keep a log of figures for a horse’s ability on different terrain: if only, two columns, one for firm-good, one for soft-heavy.
But, worse still, you have horses that simply won’t act on the ‘in between’: good to soft. That phrase could represent sticky ground, or a surface where the top slides, or divots are thrown up.
3.40 Leicester I could only read Leicester as things stood over my cornflakes. A good-to-firm surface, with showers then thunderstorms expected. The defections started early, so probably the rain did, too!
This was the best race on the card. But I’d no sooner written ‘Field Of Dream, He’s No Saint, Red Avenger and You’re Fired are all once-a-year horses who have had their win’ than two of them came out.
The subsequent favourite, Melvin The Grate, has only won once on turf in a 25-race career and his stable has won only twice in 40 starters over a fortnight.
Homage, whose last win was on the soft at this level, has dropped to a mark a pound below that success, and is a ‘hidden horse’, lightly raced this season and with his last two runs both over a trip too far. The 9.4 on BETDAQ this morning is plain ‘wrong’.
7.40 Kempton I’ve had a great run at the BETDAQ races at Kempton this year, and there are three consecutive class-4s there tonight. But trying to escape the rain won’t happen, with the track already riding slowish after watering and with a downpour expected.
Three-year-olds had the first five home in this race last season, but Bold Appeal, Mikandy and Magical Thomas all take a strong hold; St Lawrence Gap is a maiden; and Siren’s Cove failed to make a leap in grade, because 10lb higher, on the last day.
Can you trust Sixties Love to follow up? His CD win on the last day broke a losing run of 18.
I fancy a tad win and place on Lisamour, who seemed to be running into form here on the last day, back to a mark close to her back-to-back wins of last year: 17.0 on BETDAQ this morning.
6.6 NAP EJBAAR BRED TO DO WELL AS A SPRINTER
8.40 Kempton The stallion Oasis Dream has probably got the two top sprinters of the season, Commonwealth and July Cups winner Muhaarar, and Goldream, who took the Abbaye on Sunday.
I’ve always thought that the same sire’s Ejbaar would do well sprinting. He’s another ‘hidden horse’ who has led at this trip when racing at various distances over further and, back in trip here in a mediocre contest, looks a big-value nap at 6.6 on BETDAQ this morning.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked 1 to 9 for strength; 10 would be a banker)
HIDDEN HORSE: BET 3pts win and place HOMAGE (3.40 Leicester)
BET 1pt win and place LISAMOUR (7.40 Kempton)
HIDDEN HORSE: BET 6pts win (nap) EJBAAR (8.40 Kempton)
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