‘HOP’ ON TO 12.0 BETDAQ VALUE AT MARKET RASEN: They’re talking about a favourite at Market Rasen as if only divine intervention can stop it but Daqman prefers a 12.0 outsider, Legendary Hop.
Will layers at Market Rasen be caught on the Hop? The general racing rule of thumb in the modern era is to treat hunter-chase form with caution, but the Racing Post Ratings today declare a ‘stand out,’ the proverbial ‘good thing’, name of Divine Intavention at Market Rasen.
In the good old bad old days, there were hunter-chasers capable of holding their own in the big races: Spartan Missile is a name that springs to mind.
It is still possible for a young hunter-chaser to make the transition to handicaps but the older they get the less likely they are to show enough speed at a time when winners over fences get younger.
Yet we have, Divine Intavention, aged 10, as favourite on his first venture into handicap company at Market Rasen (3.50) this afternoon. And that after 264 days’ absence.
Trainer Martin Keighley, in fine form in December and around the turn of the year, hasn’t had a look-in this last fortnight, a gambled-on favourite beaten at Lingfield, half a dozen others starting at prices which suggest the stable expectation was zero: 14-1, 16-1, 20-1, 25-1 (three times), 50-1 even 100-1 among 12 runners.
Divine Intavention has a reputation for a long sequence of places in hunter chases, but is living largely off his second in the Foxhunter at Cheltenham last March.
Sounds good but hold on a minute: only four out of 23 finished. The rest – bar one faller – pulled up.
Though it has introduced its own Foxhunter Trial in the very next race (4.20), the Lincolnshire venue has attracted hunters from Norfolk and Leicester. The current Points racing in the county, which used to occupy the old Lincoln racecourse, and which goes way back to a 1950s Gold Cup winner, doesn’t have the quality these days.
But it’s local trainers Chris Bealby and Steve Gollings who could bring about the demise of the Divine, with their intervention into that 3.50 handicap chase with Legendary Hop and Honest John.
Hop won a grade lower at Rasen over a similar trip in November at the time when his stable was out of sorts – the second has franked the form since – while Honest John has dropped 5lb below his winning mark and has Tony McCoy booked.
The Racing Post ratings have Divine Intavention 8lb clear, though he is only second in to Honest John on official ratings. It’s an interesting test of whether hunter-chasers at the top of their game are any better than class 3 or 4 in handicaps.
Is the trade-paper right? Has the handicapper got it all wrong? Market Rasen is not the kind of track to bring out the best in the heavy hunter type. It’s a tight right-hander with a rapid descent to a finishing straight that needs a more nimble speedy sort
The Post’s opinion is that Divine Intavention ‘goes well fresh’. In fact, the jury is out, with returns after a long gap giving the figures (or are they letters?): UU1
Two things in his favour: he’s won a hunter-chase on this course, and his rating was dropped suddenly in the Spring after his defeats at Cheltenham 20 lengths then 24 lengths (or, again, was the handicapper right?).
Another point against him is that all his hunter-chase success has come on ground no worse than good to soft, with four of them on a notably sound surface.
He may win today but I won’t be backing him. There’s no doubt in my mind that the 12.0 Legendary Hop was a massive morning offer on BETDAQ.
More scratching of the veneer in that Foxhunter trial (3.50). The bare form suggests that Classinaglass and Galant Nuit have winning sequences to defend. Don’t believe a word of it.
Those sequences are in Points, between the flags, and in fact they have only one hunter-chase success between them.
There’s an interesting duel in the novices’ chase between Benefit Cut (3.20), Sam Twiston-Davies’s only ride of the day, and first-time-in-a-handicap Mystifiable, whose trainer, Fergal O’Brien, is 100% (2-2) in this category on this course.
Mystifiable was big on BETDAQ this morning at 5.7 under Paddy Brennan, who is 50% for O’Brien, and I used Benefit Cut as my stakes saver.
Thanks to Emperors Choice, I had one leg on the Venetia Williams bandwagon at the weekend and maybe Panama Petrus (2.20) will bring me more Venetia joy.
Seems sure to be much better suited to Market Rasen’s flat finish than the tough final climb at Towcester.
George Baker could add to his four-timer of yesterday, two of them for Gary Moore, when he partners the same stable’s While You Wait (3.30 Lingfield), visored first time.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 20 points each)
BET 7pts win (nap) PANAMA PETRUS (2.20 Market Rasen)
BET 5pts win MYSTIFIABLE and 3.4pts win (stakes saver) BENEFIT CUT (3.20 Market Rasen)
BET 6pts win WHILE YOU WAIT (3.30 Lingfield)
BET 5pts win HONEST JOHN, and 1.8pts win and place (outsider of the day) LEGENDARY HOP (3.50 Market Rasen)
BET 1.25pts win and place FUEL INJECTION (4.40 Southwell)
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