SEE HOW THEY WON: CHAMPIONS SPRINT STATS: Here is Daqman’s second check on the five championship races at Ascot on Saturday. He’s looking to find the best races to follow the stats and give you a start to your form study. Today it’s the turn of the Champions Sprint.
ANOTHER DAQMAN NAP WINS: Daqman continued in winner-a-day form with yet another successful nap yesterday, Alpha Delphini (WON 6-5) at Musselburgh. Three bets at Leicester today.
YOUNG HORSES WIN THE SPRINT
2.00 Ascot (Saturday) British Champions Sprint Which side will the winner come from? In the last six years, stalls 12 (twice) and 14 (twice) have scored for the high numbers but twice the race has gone low to gates 3 and 6.
The middle draw seems to suffer and, apart from two years in the last 12, the younger horses aged three and four rule the roost.
Three of the first four home in 2015 were three year olds, with The Tin Man (fourth) stepping up to the top of the podium last season, when four-year-olds had five of the first six to finish.
The big Royal Ascot sprints are the best guides, along with the Haydock Sprint, won this year by Harry Angel from Tasleet, who was runner-up to The Tin Man in the Diamond Jubilee.
But Caravaggio had beaten Harry Angel in the Commonwealth Cup at the royal meeting, and is currently supported in the race by four other Aidan O’Brien possibles.
REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL
Real end of season stuff at Leicester today on rain softened ground which is hardly the biggest shock in the world as we are in mid-October and approaching the end of the season!
The opener at 2.00 should be fought out between the Newmarket raiders Bold Reason (John Gosden) and Bombyx (James Fanshawe) but I think the BETDAQ market has them the wrong way round.
I’d have the slightly more experienced Bold Reason in front. He was fourth on debut at Sandown in a maiden that has worked out well subsequently (2nd and 3rd have won since) and then went down by only half a length on heavy ground over today’s trip at Haydock. That looks solid enough form.
In contrast, Bombyx has had just the one start and shaped really well when third to the runaway Ghaiyyath. He was however beaten 8 1/4 lengths and was doing his best work near the end, suggesting a longer trip maybe optimum even at this early stage of his career. The winner Ghaiyyath is clearly very smart as he proved when winning a Group 3 next time out at Newmarket. Given that Bombyx was beaten a significant distance, I wouldn’t want to be too carried with that form and drawing conclusions on that alone. It might be more realistic to say that the horse that finished sixth at Newmarket, under three lengths behind Bombyx, was subsequently beaten in a novice race at Brighton.
2.30 Leicester regular readers will know that DAQMAN usually avoids low grade racing for the sole reason that they are low grade for a reason and the unreliability factor increases the further you go down the ladder.
I make an exception for today’s nap Sans Souci Bay in the seller. He is comfortably the top-rated in the race and over evens on BETDAQ which I certainly wasn’t expecting.
I agree that ratings can draw you in with false hope at the basement level and it’s true that with horses on a mega downward spiral the rating can mean very little but I don’t think this is the case here. It was only at the end of July that he finished a neck second in a Salisbury handicap and whilst disappointing in two subsequent starts I think at 83 he is just too high in the handicap.
He’s a force to be reckoned with at the lower level though and certainly isn’t afraid of winning as he proved with back to back claiming wins earlier in the year.
The official ratings can still be wrong and he still wins – we’ve got 19lb in hand so plenty of fat to allow for a sub-par performance which might still be good enough against, frankly, shocking opponents.
5.30 Leicester Squiggley looks a good win and place proposition. The Henry Candy trained top weight is up one pound for finishing third in an Epsom handicap last time out which looked a better contest than this. The extra trip should suit as should the give in the ground. She was only beaten under four lengths over course and distance in July on faster ground and is still relatively lightly raced to eek out some improvement.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 20 points, except nap)
BET 8.5pts win BOLD REASON (2.00 Leicester)
BET 10pts win (nap) SANS SOUCI BAY (2.30 Leicester)
BET 3.5pts win, 6pts place SQUIGGLEY (5.30 Leicester)
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