TWO WEEKS TODAY: THE KINGS OF CHELTENHAM: Well, one king anyway. He’s Daqman’s ante-post BETDAQ bet today for the cross-country on the second day of the big festival, which starts in a fortnight’s time.
6.0 DAQMAN NAP: Daqman’s nap in Leicester’s opener today was 6.0 this morning on BETDAQ. Follow it through to the ‘off’ in the orange exchanges.
CHELTENHAM CROSS-COUNTRY: BALTHAZAR KING OFFERS ARE ‘HUGE”
I’m betting he’ll be king for a day. But which day? Balthazar King is the horse. The Cheltenham Cross-Country is the race. Or is it the Grand National?
Ante-post punters have been in limbo this year, with the heavy ground making the form suspect, with multiple entries for top young horses, like Annie Power, and with the demise of some of the stars, like Sprinter Sacre.
Balthazar King has become an iron horse, and I’m convinced he’ll be involved in the finish of his selected race. I bet ante-post in order to grab the ‘overs’, the difference between the price on BETDAQ now and the price with bookmakers or shorter exchange offers later on, allowing you to trade.
And Balthazar King, 7.6 in the BETDAQ orange for Tuesday March 12 at Cheltenham, is only 5-1 with most bookmakers, 9-2 in places, which gives me clear water of two points even now.
On the day, these cross-country races are usually short at the front of the market, so I can see the layers tightening up on Balthazar King and his main rival, Big Shu.
The cross-country is usually won by a horse aged 9 to 12, but Balthazar King (winner in 2012) and Big Shu (2013) have interrupted the flow of experience, both scoring at aged eight.
Big Shu is not your typical cross-country sequence horse, in the manner of a Spotthedifference. He’s been beaten at the Punchestown Festivals for the last two years and may not have won at Cheltenham last season, if Balthazar King had been there.
Philip Hobbs’s ‘king’ went for the Grand National instead, one of the finishers, well backed at 16-1, before resuming his banks career, with two more wins at Craon (the Crystal Cup) in France and at Cheltenham in November, taking a Cheltenham handicap in between.
His form figures now, deleting the National and the Sandown Gold Cup, which came too soon after Aintree, are 112111, four of the wins in cross-countrys.
This column is already on Balthazar King for the Grand National, so we must now invest in Cheltenham at the 7.6. That’s a huge price if, as I believe, he is the banks’ sequence horse, not Big Shu. And still only 10.
The gap between March 12 at Cheltenham and April 5 at Aintree is not much more than that gap between the National and the Sandown Gold Cup last season.
But, if aimed at the cross country, an unlucky run there would make him a certain starter at Liverpool. I think this is a very good horse. The fact that he’s underrated is evident in that Big Shu has no reason to be the shorter price for the cross-country.
Quiscover Fontaine, who got within two lengths of Big Shu at Punchestown earlier this month, had been 65 lengths behind Balthazar King at Cheltenham in November.
Yet he is only 10-1 in two places, 12-1 aplenty for the cross-country with bookmakers, more appropriately 16.0 on BETDAQ.
TODAY’S RACING: ‘EPEE’ A HANDICAP SNIP TO STRIKE AGAIN AT LEICESTER
CATTERICK: With the better ground – unless we are mugged, as we were by yet more rain at Musselburgh yesterday – the Easby Abbey (3.50) runners will need to find a bit of speed over this minimum trip but it’s a veterans’ race, barring the bottom three.
The favourite, Lucky Sunny, has won only on soft-heavy and is a front-runner who likes to grind them into submission. Divine Intavention, as a winner up to 3m, surely needs further.
At this time last year, Little Jimmy would have bolted up but, though he’s been backed to do so again this autumn-winter (at 7-2 and 3-1) his first reappearance run was a flop, then he fell when in contention last time.
There’s not much between Little Jimmy and Cloverhill Lad on a line through Massena so ‘Jimmy’ looks massively well handicapped today. Cheekpieces could make the difference, and 8.6 on BETDAQ gives us a chance (the orange adds up to only 108%, as I write, so punter-friendly, as ever).
LEICESTER: We have a similar situation in the last race (4.40) at Oadby today; a bunch of veterans – 7 of the 11 of a double-figure age – on drying ground.
I would discount Full Ov Beans, who is up in the weights and has poor form going right-handed (0-8); and I can’t consider the maidens Egypt Mill Spirit and Lord Landen, or the chase maiden Royal Riviera.
If I take those three out of the 107% BETDAQ orange which I see this morning, and I lose the ‘rags’ Got Attitude (never won in England), Killfinan Castle (one win in four years) and Phoenix Des Mottes (not wanted at 56.0), I’m betting in a 107-30 underround!
I’m going for the front-runner Carpincho (6.2), two out of two on a clockwise track, dropped 12lb for his three defeats last year, and with Richard Johnson booked.
For the nap, I shall try Epee Celeste (2.10 race, at 6.0 this morning). The mare came back to form (right-handed) over shorter at Market Rasen but, with Joe Cornwall’s claim, is no less than 40lb below her former winning mark.
Back to something more like her old trip, when she won twice a grade higher, she only has to be half the animal she was to follow up in this company.
DAQMAN’S BETS (today’s bets are staked to win 20 points each)
BET 4pts win (nap) EPEE CELESTE (2.10 Leicester)
BET 2.6pts win and place LITTLE JIMMY (3.50 Catterick)
BET 4pts win and place CARPINCHO (4.40 Leicester)
ANTE-POST (win 30): BET 4.5pts win BALTHAZAR KING (Cheltenham Cross Country, March 12)
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