TASTY BATTLEGROUND SP PUTS DAQMAN 367 POINTS IN FRONT: Fortune Cookies had a value-for-money strike with Battleground (WON 13-8) star of the Vintage Stakes at Goodwood yesterday and another hit for Daqman against Pricewise. Scores are now Daqman 23, Pricewise 8 with a gap of 367 points between Daqman profit and Pricewise losses. Daqman also scored yesterday with a place bet on Nayef Road (2nd 20-1 from 28.0 BETDAQ offers).
NOW 700-POINT BIG-RACE PLUNGE FOR THE FORTUNE COOKIES: Fortune Cookies’ six winners are Battleground, Dandalla, Enable, Fancy Blue, Franconia and Patrick Sarsfield. Today the profits are plunged on 20-point bets at 6.7, 19.0 and 19.5 in two races at Goodwood and Galway which could see the horses to follow flush by more than 700 points. Headlines:
🔹 STRADIVARIUS v ENABLE IN THE ARC
🔹 SMART PICK IS THE PLUNGE HORSE
🔹 GLENTIES HAS THE JOHNSTON LOOK
🔹 KAMEKO KEY TO A COOKIES STRIKE
🔹 A GALWAY GAMBLE AT BETDAQ 19.0
STRADIVARIUS v ENABLE IN THE ARC
Arc of the century. Gosden v Gosden. That word ‘unbelievable’ Frankie Dettori used about Enable he could well apply to Stradivarius after his demolition of Irish Derby winner Santiago yesterday, giving away more than a stone, for a fourth Goodwood Cup.
Now Stradivarius is set to join John Gosden stablemate Enable in the Arc at Longchamp in October, after a run in the Prix Foy, a long-time top trial for the big October race in Paris.
I warned last week that the depleted King George handed the year’s championship race to the Arc. But I never expected this.
Form anoraks rushing to dispel the scoffers at this sporting bid by Stradivarius’ connections last night reminded me that Levmoss, trained in Ireland by Seamus McGrath, won the 1969 Ascot Gold Cup, then dropped back to the Arc trip.
He was not considered a serious contender and started 52-1 against the English and Irish Derby winners, Blakeney and Prince Regent.
The mighty mare Park Top got to within threeparts of a length, second, but Levmoss made virtually all under Aussie ace rider Bill Williamson.
I’ll take 53.0 Stradivarius for the Arc. Any offers out there?
SMART PICK IS THE PLUNGE HORSE
⭕ 1.45 Goodwood (Goodwood Handicap) I hope I wrote up Maydanny strongly enough for some of you to have a bet yesterday. How many more times will draw and trip seem to make no difference to a Mark Johnston horse at Goodwood (85 winners there now).
In truth, he improved for the trip and he was ridden from the front with the confidence of a jockey who knows that there is plenty underneath him and a big future for the horse.
The same stable’s Summer Moon loves an extreme trip. Third in the Cesarewitch at three and now third in the Ascot Stakes after being gelded.
Coeur De Lion won that Ascot Stakes but he’s never put two wins together and the handicapper says he’s only a couple of pounds better since running eighth in this race in 2018.
Smart Champion was the plunge horse last night, 9.7 on BETDAQ this morning. He and Rochester House, fourth and fifth at Ascot, were both staying on.
Seinesational and True Destiny, second and third in this Goodwood handicap last year, are back for more with Seinesational 5lb better off for a neck but with True Destiny unlucky that day in that it was a slow-run race.
He has also held his form well since, suggesting recently at Newbury that he needs this extreme distance on a right-handed track. BETDAQ 5.5 taken.
GLENTIES HAS THE JOHNSTON LOOK
⭕ 2.15 Goodwood ‘A low draw wins almost every time,’ said I last year, after seven of the previous eight winners had scored from stalls 2, 4, 5 and 6. Result: a Mark Johnston strike out of gate 12.
It was Johnston’s fourth win in eight years, and he gave Glenties a sighter on the course before winning with him at Windsor. I took 7.2.
Win O’Clock is up 13lb for winning either side of a goodish run, hampered, at Royal Ascot, and they’re claiming off him now. Carlos Felix bounded clear like a cat on the same course earlier this month: 6.1 taken.
Dual winners A Star Above (like Encipher not bred to step up to this trip) and front-runner Mambo Nights have to continue their improvement.
KAMEKO KEY TO A COOKIES STRIKE
⭕ 3.15 Goodwood (Sussex Stakes) Before a huge solo gamble at Galway, Fortune Cookies tries to bag the Sussex Stakes with two chances, 2,000 Guineas winner Kameko and outsider Vatican City. In ratings order:
120 CIRCUS MAXIMUS Rallied to win the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot as Aidan O’Brien’s sole representative, but there are two Ballydoyle chances today.
120 MOHAATHER Beaten five lengths in both the British Champions Mile and the Queen Anne; owes his rating to success in the Group-2 Summer Mile.
119 KAMEKO Won the Newmarket Guineas only a neck but quite comfortably from Wichita and the odds-on Pinatubo. Tried the Irish Derby but not stay the 1m 4f.
118 WICHITA Second in the Guineas but behind Pinatubo in the St James Palace Stakes and needs to improve to defy ‘nearly horse’ tag.
116 SISKIN Unbeaten (5-5) winner of the Curragh Guineas, after Marble Hill, Railway Stakes and Phoenix two-year-olds treble.
Trainer Ger Lyons on the crest of a wave nervously asserts: ‘He’s a good horse, but stall one is a worry.’
114 SAN DONATO Third in the French Guineas, runner-up to Mohaather at Royal Ascot.
112 VATICAN CITY Seeming Ballydoyle second string but in-form William Buick booked. Has nearly two lengths to make up on Siskin but his Irish Guineas run was not trouble free.
Verdict: I’m more nervous than Ger Lyons, with BETDAQ 6.7 Kameko and 19.5 Vatican City, my Fortune Cookies against the favourite.
A GALWAY GAMBLE AT BETDAQ 19.0
⭕ 6.45 Galway (Galway Plate) Only once this century in 20 runnings of the race has a winner carried 11st or more and, in that time, six-year-olds have won only twice.
Galvin has a rating a mere pound ‘too high’; his novice-chase second at the Cheltenham Festival sits well on his CV and his trainer, Gordon Elliott, is on a hat-trick in this race, which would make his recent Plate record 4-5.
On 2lb ‘high’ is Us And Them, a Fortune Cookie on the strength of strong reports from my man in the long grass that Joseph O’Brien has ‘laid the horse out for the Plate’. This is a Cookies gamble at 19.0 in the BETDAQ orange this morning.
Us And Them seemed to take a big leap forward when third in the Grand Annual at Cheltenham. There’s a question mark over the extra distance of the Plate but it could be what’s been wanted all along.
O’Brien has a second runner, Early Doors, last year’s Martin Pipe Hurdle winner but costly for punters as a short-priced loser on all four starts over fences.
I sniffed at Royal Rendezvous as a late-starting novice but, in fact, horses aged eight are on a hat-trick in this race.
Easy Game shouldn’t be judged on his Cheltenham Festival defeat over a trip too far but on two excellent earlier runs at today’s distance at Leopardstown.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.45 Goodwood (win 50)
BET 11pts win TRUE DESTINY
BET 5.75pts win SMART CHAMPION
2.15 Goodwood (win 50)
BULL’S-EYE BET 10pts win CARLOS FELIX
BULL’S-EYE BET 8pts win GLENTIES
3.15 Goodwood
FORTUNE COOKIES
BET 20pts win KAMEKO (nap)
BET 20pts win VATICAN CITY
6.45 Galway
FORTUNE COOKIE and win 20
BET 20pts win US AND THEM
BET 4.5pts win GALVIN
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