STONEBROOK: THE BEST IS YET TO COME: Daqman’s picks today include a Tony McCoy double at Wetherby, with the champion’s ride, the well-bred Stonebrook, as the nap, regarded as a horse for the future.
FIRST OF THE MOHICANS! Now is the time to start checking out the Cheltenham Festival offers on contenders like First Mohican, one of the early Alan King probables in the next week, as he tries to get his string back to racing fitness.
Alan King will be back on Friday, looking for his first scalp of 2014. The Barbary Castle yard shut down on New Year’s Day but has made entries for Doncaster and Cheltenham at the weekend.
Scheduled for next week is a debut run over hurdles for First Mohican, Group placed on the Flat in France and the apple of owner Henry Ponsonby’s eye.
First Mohican, who is bred from a Dancing Brave mare, will really need two races in the next three weeks if he is to make Cheltenham.
Though he hasn’t jumped a twig in public, First Mohican is 20-1 for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle with 13 bookmakers in the Oddschecker list this morning but there’s more than double that, with 43.0 offers on BETDAQ.
Also attracting attention in the ante-post lists for Cheltenham is Willie Mullins’ Moyle Park, as low as 14-1 with one firm, and 25-1 best for the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle but 48.0 on BETDAQ.
Moyle Park landed a hat-trick as he stepped up from bumpers to hurdles but disappointed at Leopardstown over Christmas. Forget that form.
Moyle Park, superbly NH bred by Flemensfirth out of a Presenting mare, is still on track for the top Irish trial, the Deloitte, at Leopardstown in three weeks time.
It’s Festival Trials Day at Cheltenham on Saturday and I shall be checking out for you the horses most likely to go on to have a festival chance.
That will be the first of my features on ‘where the festival winners come from’, a way of looking forward to March by looking back on the pattern of race history.
WETHERBY TODAY: Wetherby has four races today of class 4 or better, in which we shall, hopefully, get some consistency of form, though the mud intervenes to make bets selection tricky.
Little Glenshee and Free World are the only deep-ground winners in the day’s first chase (12.50), and I shall dutch them against the morning favourite, Sharney Sike, who is clearly hard to keep right, and may bounce from his last-time win after a long absence.
Front-running Wicklow Lad (1.55) has been caned by the handicapper but should serve to stretch this field, suggesting that Aachen and Tartan Snow, who have never won this far, will be made to struggle, and Beau Dandy has drifted like a lonely dog on a raft, over my betting weir to 27.0 as I write.
Real Milan is usually best caught first time back but he blew out as favourite on his reappearance at Doncaster at the end of last month. You could say that the same applies to Rose Of The Moon but the grey’s return run was a try-out over the Grand National fences.
He’s a course-and-distance winner at Wetherby, down to his level for the first time in over a year – now 8lb lower – and he’s won on heavy.
Green Wizard is a CD winner but is a Spring horse, with all his success recorded in May, and has had a poor autumn-winter, pulled up either side of a modest second in novice company at Newcastle in November. I took 4.5 Rose Of The Moon.
Philip Hobbs comes up from Somerset with two likely favourites, Tiqris (2.30) and Mighty Mobb (3.05) but, for him, he has a less-than-average record at the track.
Tiqris was short at 2.26 this morning but the BETDAQ market said that not many were likely to get into it, with 30.0 bar three.
Stonebrook is a McManus, so Tony McCoy rides for Donald McCain on a six-year-old fast enough to win bumpers but bred for stamina by Flemensfirth out of a Bob Back mare.
Secrete Stream is a CD winner but unlikely to defy the penalties, and I took the 3.3 Stonebrook, inclined to think that this is really a two-horse race and that McCoy’s mount is one for the future.
Mighty Mobb’s race is a smaller field but the betting is more open, as I write, and Arc Warrior’s recent good form (after PPP/PPP) suggests that anything goes at this level and patience brings its own reward.
Or, as the Stewards recorded after Carrigeen Kariega’s win at Thurles two weeks back: ‘No explanation for the apparent improvement in form’.
Will he hold that form? Can the plodding The Magic Bishop return to his 2011 level? As a son of Bishop Of Cashel, he will love the mud. Royal Chatelier stays all day and, claimed off, is close to his winning mark at Lingfield in November.
Dermatologiste, behind that day at Lingfield, is a CD winner who needs hard driving and he’s given up three times in the last four (P1P-P).
Mighty Mobb is still a maiden who came up the Towcester hill well enough last time but doesn’t look like a bet as a novice with a similar weight to the three nine-year-olds.
I made 8.0 about the seemingly revitalized Arc Warrior my first position on the race, since he’s set to get nearly two stone off those top four in the heavy ground.
DAQMAN’S BETS (stakes to win 20 each)
BET 4.5pts win on each FREE WORLD and LITTLE GLENSHEE (12.50 Wetherby)
BET 5.7pts win ROSE OF THE MOON (1.55 Wetherby)
BET 8.6pts win (nap) STONEBROOK (2.30 Wetherby)
BET 2.8pts win ARC WARRIOR (3.05 Wetherby)
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