START OF FLAT SEASON (PROPER): Daqman argues that the Flat (turf) season really starts at Newmarket today, and that it should officially do so, with a proper launch and week long festival of Flat and jumps racing.
DAQMAN ON THREE HAT-TRICKS: Daqman yesterday pledged to attempt a Grand Nationals hat-trick with the Scottish version on Saturday to add to his Irish and English but he landed two more trebles in the Spring and early summer on the Flat last year: three home Guineas out of four and three consecutive Derbys: English, Irish and French:
Daqman’s 2015 Guineas
WON 4-1 Gleneagles (English 2,000)
WON 2-5 Gleneagles (Irish 2,000)
WON 11-2 Pleascach (Irish 1,000)
Daqman’s 2015 Derbys
WON 3-1 New Bay (French Derby)
WON 13-8 Golden Horn (Epsom Derby)
WON 10-11 Jack Hobbs (Irish Derby
HE BEAT PRICEWISE 105-23: Last Flat season Daqman beat Pricewise by 105 returns to 23. He is 5-3 up this season so far and the overall scores are Daqman 302, Pricewise 119. The rivals clash today in the Nell Gwyn Stakes (4.30) at Newmarket.
IT’S DAY ONE OF GUINEAS AND DERBY HUNT
Remember the start of the Flat (turf) season at Redcar? Of course you don’t. Remember the Lincoln Handicap in appalling conditions at Doncaster? You’d rather not.
The Flat-season proper starts at Newmarket today and, when Doncaster finally closes (the track is in shocking disrepair and it would clearly be ineffectual for a second ‘new course’ to be laid in eight years), the powers-that-be will finally realise that we do, indeed, need a proper start to the turf season, and we need it here at Headquarters; we need the Lincoln here, and we need a proper launch week.
What a week it would be if we had the Grand National; the Newbury Spring Cup and Greenham; the Guineas and Derby trials and the Lincoln at Newmarket; and the Scottish National at Ayr.
We need this kind of carnival, a moveable feast that would attract world attention, as do Cheltenham and Royal Ascot.
Doncaster simply should not get away with the Lincoln charade, when four horses finished miles clear of the rest because of the poor ground conditions which had most of them in a sea of sods and mud or simply eased down.
Those who argue that it was the same soft-heavy ground for the Grand National will find me in total agreement but pointing out that we had a terrific race with 16 able to finish after four-and-half miles, thanks to another amazing job by ground staff on an immaculate turf.
Today starts the season of Classic tests. As ever the Irish got there first, with their Guineas trials at Leopardstown but those winners rarely figure in the Classics.
Next week, I shall do as I did for Cheltenham, telling you how the big winners got to the Guineas, and we’ll see if an ante-post punt is possible.
MAY YOU BE WITH THE FORCE AT NEWMARKET
2.10 Newmarket None of these maidens is entered up in the big fillies’ races, not even Golden Horn’s half-sister, Golden Reign, who is a big price on BETDAQ this morning, offered in the orange at 7.2 the win and better than evens the place.
Swiss Range was very strong at around 6-5, hooded first time as though John Gosden means business with her today, and with a decent soft-ground run as a two-year-old. But he has another in the race, Aqualis, a Sea The Stars filly.
Roger Varian also has two runners: My Favourite Thing has the benefit of experience but Penny Lane Forever is by a soft-ground sire. Golden Reign’s sire also does very well with his progeny on soft. This is the race that will tell us what the surface is like.
2.45 Newmarket The six remaining in this are all Classics entered, barring Thikriyaat – he’s been gelded – but Sir Michael Stoute is very well forward this year and he could surprise the Richard Hannon pair, Chief Whip and Tabarrak.
Though Hannon is bullish about Tabarrak, Chief Whip was favourite this morning, with Thikriyaat too big at 9.8. Another ‘bit each way’.
3.20 Newmarket All four of Amazour, Grandad’s World, Lucky Beggar and Desert Force won first time out last season.
Lucky Beggar, thought to be a Group horse at the start of 2015, was disappointing and his prep race on AW revealed that his wayward traits were still in evidence, despite his having been gelded.
The strong favourite early mouse, Grandad’s World, and Amazour are drawn wide, so I shall take Desert Force at 9.4 for Team Hannon, which shows their best level-stakes profit here of all the course s in the land.
IS THERE A GOLDEN HORN IN THE FEILDEN?
3.55 Newmarket (Feilden Stakes) After producing not a lot for years since Guy Harwood (Ela-Man-Mou and Kalaglow) farmed it in the Seventies, this race has come good in the last three seasons, producing French Derby winner and Arc third, Intello.
And two years on it yielded up an absolute monster. Epsom Derby, Eclipse and Arc winner Golden Horn landed the first of six successes in this in 2015, with a truly winning comment from a most astute race-reader in the Racing Post, forever famous for one word in the extant form database: ‘promising.’
Intello and Golden Horn had both started late in the autumn of the previous season, which applies to all here by Southdown Lad and Ventura Storm, summer beginners who soon looked exposed, both being beaten when raised in class.
This seems to be a poor year for the race, but million-dollars yearling Tathqeef, from the same stable as Golden Horn, is reckoned capable of improving the proverbial ton.
NATHRA BEST IN THE NELL GWYNN ORANGE
4.30 Newmarket (Nell Gwyn Stakes) This fillies’ trial has produced just one Group 1 and one Group 3 winner (though one or two did well in America later) since Speciosa landed the Nell Gwyn and Newmarket 1,000 Guineas double in 2006 in a moderate year.
If you fancy Fillies’ Mile winner, Minding for the 1,000 Guineas, you probably need to be on this morning, in case Coolmore or Nathra should win.
What’s Aidan O’Brien’s stunning bit of info about Coolmore, his Fillies’ Mile fourth? Yes, you guessed it: ‘She’s ready to start off.’
The Fillies’ Mile runner-up, Nathra, drops back to her winning distance, and she and Godolphin’s First Victory are clear in the BETDAQ market as I write. Both are drawn high.
O’Brien doesn’t normally bring his best filly to HQ at this stage, and Saeed Bin Suroor (Godolphin) seems to be at the weakest end of the Godolphion resurgence.
So I’m napping Nathra, who has been working so well on the gallops that any doubts that she’s trained on have been dispelled.
The well-bred Mix And Mingle did nothing wrong last season and was always going to make a better three-year-old: 16.5 with the place odds in mind.
DAQMAN’S BETS (stakes limited to win 20)
BET 3.3pts win and place GOLDEN REIGN (2.10 Newmarket)
BET 2.2pts win and place THIKRIYAAT (2.45 Newmarket)
BET 2.3pts win and place DESERT FORCE (3.20 Newmarket)
BET 8.6pts win (nap) TATHQEEF (3.55 Newmarket)
BET 11pts win NATHRA, and 1.2pts win and place MIX AND MINGLE (4.30 Newmarket)
£25 IN FREE BETS
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