GOOD LAY IN THE WARWICK GREEN: Daqman’s seen the sun and is talking golfing parlance with an ‘air shot’ (lay) and a ‘hole in one’ (clear top rating) at Warwick this afternoon. His nap is at Haydock.
FINDING COVER IN STABLE FIGHT: The Battle of Aintree was declared on today by Willie Mullins and Paul Nicholls, with seemingly the Grand National set to decide the trainers’ title.
How does that affect punters?
WAY THROUGH NICHOLLS-MULLINS WALL
Racing stats are like wickets. Just when you think you’ve covered all eventualities with a confident guard, someone pitches one up at you and beats your bat.
Trainers running two or more horses in a race set you several concerns: is one of them ‘the intended’; is his top-weight there to keep the weight down for another runner from the same yard; is one of them just prepping or testing the trip for ‘another day’?
My answer to you (in articles passim) was to make my selection in the usual way but, if that selection is with the multi-entry stable, I have to do savers on his or her other runner(s), though that may slightly reduce my original edge.
I do not have a record of ‘which one wins’ from multiple entries, but I know a man who does. And he reports that outsiders among ‘duals or multiples’ win the races enough times to make it a tool for betting.
Before you rush in and back all the long-shots, he is an algorithms man, computing everything into a race from the wind speed to whether the horse has loppy lugs. (If he has loppy lugs, does the wind direction affect his chances? I’m all ears)
What is my man’s feed on the likelihood of NINE runners from Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins in the Grand National, a toe-to-toe that could see their horses slugging it out in a trainers’ championship decider?
Answer? He has a special set of factors for the National, including a dreaded ‘social runner’ mark-down, which increases the odds spewed out of his software for horses he thinks are there just for the occasion. How does that help this case?
It’s a similar situation, he says; you have to decide which horses are in ‘as an afterthought’ or ‘on the off chance’; running without a definite prep route (what we call ‘laid out’ for the race).
Says my man: ‘In their greed (his word not mine), they are running horses which shouldn’t be there.
‘More important; they are running horses that have not had a Grand National preparation. That’s not the animal you want.’
‘Yes’, says I, fishing further and further out in his swim, ‘but how do you quantify that?’ His reply: ‘Go home and massage your own data base.’
Travelling trainers’ used to be a system. But what about travelling owners? I knew one pro punter who used to say that checking on whether a horse’s connections are at the races provided the foundation for his main bets.
One particular trainer who allowed me into his circle – that’s when you’ve spent a fortune in training fees – answered this question about a certain horse:
Why, I asked, does it have similar form figures (sort of 00010010) every year?
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the wins are when the trainer is allowed to travel to England from his offshore domicile.’ Stick that one into your algorithms…
THE FAVOURITE IS AN AIR SHOT! LAY HIM
2.10 Warwick The show must go on until better times are here. We have the start of the Flat (bad time for betting) and the Grand National (see above) to look forward to. So no worries, then.
Walking On Air is going for an ignoble hat-trick: failure here could be a third consecutive flop at odds-on, a fourth start as favourite without winning. And Dan Skelton’s strike-rate has fallen through the floor (2-33).
Lay or oppose with something else (or both)? Would you believe that Nicky Henderson runs two (see above) So does Ian Williams (see above). And Alan King has won the race twice in five years but is on the cold list, without a winner for more than a month.
All this is leading up to having ‘a silly pound’ on Robert’s Star, a 20.0 offer on BETDAQ this morning. My equation?
Robert’s Star needs long distances; his trainer, Mark Bradstock, likes to send them off in front and play catch-me; he’s waited for the good ground; he’s fitted a hood.
If only M Bradstock wasn’t on the cold list, too (67 days without a winner). But I’ve just looked at his record and he seems to manage a 28% strike rate from a few decent runners and tends to plot for a breakthrough with his best horses at any given moment in time.
And checking the BETDAQ offers, I find I can lay the jolly at 1.65 in the green. What a double whammy this pair would make!
THIS ONE’S RATED A HOLE IN ONE AT 5.0
3.50 Warwick The first race all day over jumps that isn’t for novices or maidens. Tell’s it all, doesn’t it.
I warned against Warren Greatrex’s runners after a poor run and a heartbreaking Cheltenham but he has bounced back with a double in three days.
Greatrex will be hoping Ceann Sibheal can score back to back, but he’s stepping up in trip, and he’s been hit for 11lb by the handicapper.
Named after one of the top golf courses in Ireland, but facing a different ball game on the sounder turf of Warwick after the mud at Lingfield.
It’s also different going for Talk Of The South, trying to duck some of the handicapper’s 11lb rise, returning quickly with a 7lb fixed penalty.
Which one of the last-time winners (the others look too one-paced to win on such a sound surface)?
Well, my algorithms man always starts with the rating, and the Racing Post says that Ceann Sibheal is a standout, despite his treatment by the handicapper.
Ratings are usually close together in handicaps nowadays but he’s still a massive 8 points clear, but a tasty 5.0 offers in the BETDAQ orange.
That price has to be wrong. Fore!
THE NAP: Fergal O’Brien had a spell of 111212 before Cheltenham, two of them ridden by Paddy Brennan, and seems to have Lord Landen (4.30) well placed in the veterans’ race at Haydock, only 11 and with an edge on age over five of the eight runners.
Lord Landen (3.65 this morning) does well in his races despite being ‘as mad as a box of frogs.’ Many like yourself in the House Of Lords, your lordship. But they don’t let that stop’em!
DAQMAN BETS (staked 1 to 9 for strength)
LAY to lose 5pts WALKING IN THE AIR, and BET 1pt win and place ROBERT’S STAR (2.10 Warwick)
BET 5pts win CEANN SIBHEAL (3.50 Warwick)
BET 8pts win (nap) LORD LANDEN (4.30 Haydock)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 2pts win double CEANN SIBHEAL (3.50 Warwick) and LORD LANDEN (4.30 Haydock)
£25 IN FREE BETS
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