DAQMAN IN NAP-WINNING FORM FOR THE START OF ROYAL ASCOT: Daqman launches Royal Ascot’s five days with four bull’s-eye bets to win 50 points, plus a supernap and Fortune Cookie. He opened the week yesterday with a winning nap and a profit on the day, with Tregony (WON 7-4). His tipping records stand as follows for Ascot:
DAQMAN 28, PRICEWISE 16
SUPERNAPS 7-9 (profit 117.84)
LAYS LOGIC 8-11
(Fortune Cookies 0-1; this week’s naps 1-1)
SUNNY START BUT STORMS THREATEN LATER IN THE WEEK: The first two days are expected to be run on good-to-firm ground but thunderstorms are forecast from Wednesday night and at times on Thursday and Friday. Here’s your race-by-race analysis by Daqman. Headlines:
👑 PALACE PIER CAN LEAD THE ORDER IN
👑 ACROPOLIS TO STOP KAUFY MACHINE
👑 KINGS STAND FOR THE QUEEN AT 17.0
👑 8.6 LUCKY AT LAST ON FIRM GROUND
👑 GENTLEMAN JUMPING TO THE FRONT
👑 IT HAS TO BE ONCE MORE WITH FELIX
PALACE PIER CAN LEAD THE ORDER IN
🎩 2.30 Royal Ascot (Queen Anne Stakes)
STATS: Four and five year olds (9 out of 10) usually take this from a single figure stall (9 out of 10). Aidan O’Brien has won it four times.
FORM: Recent ratings of winners average 116/117 but Palace Pier (125) is clear of Order Of Australia (120) who, in turn, leaves a heap of them behind containing four horses which are too old on the stats.
When Lord Glitters, now eight, won in 2019, he had to hope that just one horse high in the ratings ran below par; it did.
Today is hardly such an open renewal, and Palace Pier has already trounced Top Rank (3rd), Lord Glitters (4th) and Lope De Vega (8th) in the Lockinge.
Order Of Australia beat last year’s Queen Anne winner, Circus Maximus, when taking the Breeders Cup mile on firm at Keeneland. But he ran stinkers before and after that as if his Cup strike was a fluke.
FORTUNE COOKIE: Palace Pier (supernap)
ACROPOLIS TO STOP KAUFY MACHINE
🎩 3.05 Royal Ascot (Coventry Stakes)
STATS: Aidan O’Brien has won this nine times, lastly with Arizona in 2019. Favourites have won five times in the decade but there have also been some shockers: 20-1 War Command (2013) and last year Nando Parrado scored at 150-1. He hadn’t won before and he hasn’t won since!
FORM: The pace seems to be down the middle in 7, 12 and 13 but a Wesley Ward (Kaufymaker in 3) is usually very fast away, though few of his sustain their blind speed beyond 5f.
Kaufymaker’s scintillating sole success has not been supported since: the runner-up has finished last in both of two runs since. A filly has not won this since 1916. A very big type, she is all Dirt in her pedigree and has not run in public on grass.
Tolstoy (from 5), a Kingman out of a Frankel mare, can be expected to pick up the tow, but second and third in his York debut win have both failed since.
The Acropolis (from 4) is the ‘chosen one’ of four O’Brien entries. His sire, Churchill, won a bad Guineas on firm.
Another Churchill son, Golden War (stall 8), looks ideal for the stiff six, and Jamie Spencer the ideal judge of where the line is in a straight dash. Runner-up Kingmax has let down Gisburn’s Newbury form.
Ebro River comes fast out of the one stall, boosted by success before and after his soft-ground Sandown romp by all six beaten opponents. But he now has to do it on a sound surface over a furlong further.
BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE value 8.6 The Acropolis, 28 Golden War
KINGS STAND FOR THE QUEEN AT 17.0
🎩 3.40 Royal Ascot (King’s Stand Stakes)
STATS: Only one winning favourite in 10 seasons. Seven winners from stalls 8 to 18. Recent winning ratings 120, 121, 126.
Just one seven-year-old and one three-year-old have scored in the decade, yet here those two disparate generations clash as first and second favourite, Battaash and Winter Power.
FORM: Battaash, who won it last year (Liberty Beach third), seemed to be better than ever with 3-3.
He’s been absent 298 days but won first time out last year after 254 days off, though this time he has had a serious injury.
Que Amoro, beaten a length by Battaash in the Nunthorpe, returns from a 275-day break and Michael Dods has had a modest season so far by his standards.
Winter Power has been hiked 24lb for a hat-trick since September, completed at York last month, with runner-up Atalis Bay paying tribute with a Listed success at Sandown on Saturday.
American raider Extravagant Kid (Frankie Dettori) was run down and beaten a length and a quarter, giving 3lb to Glass Slippers, in the Breeders Cup Sprint.
But Battaash had Glass Slippers more than two lengths down when giving that one 8lb at Goodwood in July.
Kings Lynn made a huge stop up in form ‘but is still learning to sprint,’ said Oisin Murphy, and a Royal Ascot winner for The Queen must at least have been the hopeful part of the plan for this four-year-old. Another step up is needed.
LAYS LOGIC Battaash (at 3.0 or shorter)
BETDAQ value 6 Winter Power, 17.0 Kings Lynn
8.6 LUCKY AT LAST ON FIRM GROUND
🎩 4.20 Royal Ascot (St James’s Palace Stakes)
STATS: It’s John Gosden 3, Aidan O’Brien 2 in the decade but Gleneagles, Dawn Approach, Frankel suggest this is usually a repeat of the Newmarket Guineas when there’s been a good enough winner.
FORM: Sure enough, we have the 2,000 winner, Poetic Flare, back on the firm ground he enjoyed at Newmarket but where he finished only half-a-length in front of the hampered third horse home, Lucky Vega.
The pair have since finished second and fourth in the Irish 2,000 but the Curragh was riding soft-heavy that day (La Barrosa sixth, Wembley last).
Such has been the ins-and-outs of three-year-old form that Lucky Vega, Chindit (5th at Newmarket), Wembley (11th) and Battleground (13th) are prepared to take on Poetic Flare again, and Jim Bolger has him try his third Group 1 in ljust 45 days.
Poetic Flare, Lucky Vega and La Barrosa (sixth) all bring their Curragh excuses to the table with the irish 2,000 winner, Mac Swiney, folding his cards until the Coral-Eclipse.
Mostahdaf beat Highland Avenue and Bullace at Sandown last month but that was on soft ground and the winner’s trainer, John Gosden, has been quoted as saying this year’s hand of three-year-olds is his worst in years.
Ballydoyle reaches for a tongue-tie for Battleground, suggesting that not only the track was against him at Newmarket.
When La Barrosa was second in the Craven Stakes, then couldn’t handle the mud of the Curragh Guineas, it was assumed that he’d go for the Jersey Stakes, but Charlie Appleby insists on the mile.
Thunder Moon had St Mark’s Basilica behind in third in the National Stakes and that one only just ran Thunder Moon (3rd, failed to pick up) out of the Dewhurst on soft. Like Van Gogh, Wembley and Battleground, Thunder Moon ran a stinker in the Guineas (last of the 14)
But one among the many lined up for this battle of the also-rans must be closer to Poetic Flare now, but which one? Lucky Vega has the ground.
BETDAQ value 8.6 Lucky Vega
GENTLEMAN JUMPING TO THE FRONT
🎩 5.00 Ascot Stakes
STATS: Look beyond the four-year-olds: ages 5, 6, 7 (8-10); ratings 91-95 (7-10). Willie Mullins has won four and hurdlers are 11-11.
FORM: Cape Gentleman, a hurdles winner over 2m 4f and a Grade-2 novice scorer on good ground, has raced in only one Flat handicap, the Irish Cesarewitch, and won it!
Rochester House, ‘doing a Johnston’ and setting a steady pace, failed to hold off Just Hubert in a Goodwood handicap over this kind of trip last summer.
Johnston’s Trumpet Man, though high in the handicap after a staying hat-trick last autumn, was going on well in the Chester Cup after a slow start and, at four, may have grown into his new position in the handicap.
Fortune Cookie East Asia misses this to wait for the Northumberland Plate, for which I took 33-1 in Daqman, when I first put him up for the race.
BETDAQ value 6.5 Cape Gentleman, 12 Just Hubert, 17 Trumpet Man.
IT HAS TO BE ONCE MORE WITH FELIX
🎩 5.35 Royal Ascot (Wolferton Stakes)
STATS: Stalls 5, 6, 7, 8 have landed seven of the last 10 winners; none lower. John Gosden has won it four times in the decade.
Patrick Sarsfield is a bridesmaid unless you accept Meydan form (which I am always loathe to do), though Felix ran third to Lord North there and was strongly touted this morning.
Blue Cup won well at Epsom but that was in first-time hood. Forest of Dean has a penalty for winning the Winter Derby, and is 5lb worse off with Felix for threeparts of a length.
I’d love to see Solid Stone win it for Sir Michael Stone, who has paid for my mortgage through the years.
BETDAQ value 6.0 Felix, 6.0 Solid Stone
DAQMAN’S BETS
FORTUNE COOKIE
2.30 Royal Ascot (supernap)
BET 20pts win PALACE PIER
3.05 Royal Ascot (win 50 x 2, place win 10)
BET 6.5pts win THE ACROPOLIS
BET 1.85pts win and place GOLDEN WAR
3.40 Royal Ascot (win 30, place win 10)
BET 6pts win WINTER POWER
BET 2pts win, 3pts place KINGS LYNN
Lays Logic BATTAASH (at 3.0 or shorter)
4.20 Royal Ascot (win 20)
BET 3pts win LUCKY VEGA
5.00 Royal Ascot (win 50 x 2, win 20)
BULL’S-EYE BET 4.5pts win JUST HUBERT
BULL’S-EYE BET 3pts win TRUMPET MAN
BET 3.75pts win CAPE GENTLEMAN
5.35 Royal Ascot (win 20 each)
BET 4pts win FELIX
BET 4pts win SOLID STONE
6.10 Royal Ascot (win 20 at BETDAQ value 10.0)
BET 2pts win ARTHURIAN FABLE
What are points? Points facilitate a staking plan, which is the secret to creating profit. One point is whatever you choose: a pound, a euro, or whatever ….
Start with a bank and decide how much you can afford to lose over a period of time, and determine the size of your bets accordingly. Daqman makes this variation every day.
