TOP TIPPING AT MAX BETDAQ ODDS AS DAQMAN DAILY HITS CONTINUE: After four winning naps in five days, it’s been the turn of Daqman’s bigger prices this week, with strikes at BETDAQ value odds at Chantilly and Saint-Cloud.
WON 17-2 MAZELTOF (Monday)
WON 49-10 TOP MAX (yesterday, 6.0 taken on BETDAQ)
GOVERNMENT U-TURN: GREEN-ZONE RACING ONLY ALLOWED IN FRANCE: It’s good news and bad news but the show goes on. Paris tracks have had to close again, with fixtures switched to more remote racecourses. Jumps features at the Galway Festival have been saved. And there’s racing today at La Teste in France. Headlines:
🔹 PARIS TRACKS LOCKDOWN BACK ON
🔹 GALWAY FESTIVAL FEATURES SAVED
🔹 MOORE TO MISS THE IRISH GUINEAS
🔹 IT’S NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
🔹 COMEDY CAN PUT YOU IN THE BLACK
PARIS TRACKS LOCKDOWN BACK ON
They’re shut again! A row erupted last night after new government regional protocol to combat the virus meant that the main Paris tracks of Longchamp, Saint Cloud and Auteuil must close again.
The region is back in lockdown and, after today’s La Teste meeting in the south-west, racing is moved to outlying or seaside courses, well away from main centres of population.
Thursday’s Longchamp card goes to Deauville; Friday Fontainebleau is now Friday Vichy and Compiegne’s card moves to Dieppe.
With Deauville in the ‘green zone’ where the lockdown is lifted, the French Guineas is likely to be moved there from Longchamp, since there is no review of the lockdown until June 2, the day after the first Classics are due to be staged.
* Classic horses to follow is held over for a rethink after the changes.
GALWAY FESTIVAL FEATURES SAVED
It wouldn’t be the same. The Galway Festival will have its Galway Plate and Galway Hurdle after all, despite cost cutting and rumours of a Flat-only programme.
The big jumps features will go ahead in a full seven-day festival, but behind closed doors, starting on July 27
It is also business as before for the Group-race programme on the Flat, apart from the three Group-1 races usually run at Irish Guineas weekend. No other Group race has been lost.
Because it’s now to be run at the end of July, the Tattersalls Gold Cup will be open to thee-year-olds.
Racing resumes in Ireland on June 8, after the loss of 87 fixtures since March 24.
MOORE TO MISS THE IRISH GUINEAS
You can’t win em all; not this year. Ryan Moore will miss the big-money Ballydoyle rides in the Irish Guineas and stay in England to avoid the quarantine regulations. What Moore loses, Seamie Heffernan gains in Ireland.
But by then Moore will have ridden either Arizona or Wichita for Aidan O’Brien in the Newmarket Classic on June 6.
Moore has won the Irish 2,000 twice in the last five years on Gleneagles (2015) and Churchill (2017), and the 1,000 three times in six seasons on Marvellous (2014), Winter (2017) and Hermosa last year.
Another stay-at-home rider is Shane Foley, who will miss the English 1,000 mount on Jessica Harrington’s Millisle to partner her stablemate Albigna in the Irish 1,000 six days later.
IT’S NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
⚠️ LEADING FRENCH TRAINERS Christophe Escuder 24, Jean-Claude Rouget 24, Christophe Ferland 23, Fabrice Vermeulen 22, Frederic Rossi 21. At La Teste De Buch (2019), Didier Guillemin 10, Mme Jean-Francois Bernard 8, Francois Rohaut 8, Jean-Claude Rouget 7.
⚠️ LEADING FRENCH JOCKEYS Pierre-Charles Boudot 55, Maxime Guyon 42, Christophe Soumillon 41, Anthony Crastus 27, Cristian Demuro 27. At La Teste De Buch (2019), Julien Auge 12, Francois-Xavier Bertras 12, Anthony Crastus 10, Jean-Bernard Eyquem 10, Olivier Peslier 8.
⭕ 1.07 La Teste De Buch Since winning the Classic preps of Port Guillaume, Simeen and Raabihah, Jean-Claude Rouget has been in modest bridesmaid form with his lesser lights, six out of eight placed without winning, including two beaten favourites I put up yesterday.
He has two chances in this race today with previous winners but is challenged by the leading course trainer, Didier Guillemin, who last year set alarm bells ringing in the big yards with a stunning 81% win-and-place strike rate (55 wins and 118 places from 214 races by the end of July).
He had shot into the limelight by beating Rouget into second place in the 2011 French 2,000 Guineas with Tin Horse.
His star follow-up has been The Right Man, winner of 10 turf races for earnings of 756,502 euros, and showing signs of another impending victory, when beaten only a couple of lengths here at La Teste on Sunday.
So it’s intriguing stuff in this 1m conditions race for Guillemin’s Oftenwork against the Rouget pair, Serkiyna and Rosmana, though not forgetting La Teste’s leading jockey, Julien Ange, on Project Fear for Christophe Ferland, who trains a stone’s throw from the track.
If Guillemin can rob them of this prize, it would be a real car crash of a race for the local heroes, Rouget, Ferland and Francois Rohaut, who saddles Tamahere, representing the form of French Derby hope Pao Alto.
Oftenwork is 4.5 on BETDAQ but I can’t resist Rosmana (8.0), too. She’s the first foal by Siyouni out of a Sea The Stars mare called Royana.
COMEDY CAN PUT YOU IN THE BLACK
⭕ 1.42 La Teste De Buch The usual suspects are here, too, this time theoretically equalised in a handicap (1m), but I fancy Hallowed Song as my outsider of the day, 17.0 on BETDAQ for Phillippe Sogorb, who had three winners from his first five starters when racing resumed last week.
Sogorb is from south-west France, though not as far south as La Teste or Pau.
Sogorb struck big money immediately at the end of the lockdown with Batwan (Maxime Guyon) in the Group-3 Prix de Saint Georges sprint.
There’s no Maxime Guyon today but Anthony Crastus, who rides Hallowed Song, is chasing up the top three riders. He says: ‘I owe many thanks to Phillippe Sogorb for putting me back on the map among the best jockeys after my return last summer.’
But is it an unspoken message from Guyon that he rides five consecutive maidens at the start of this La Teste programme today; then goes home?
Ferland runs the former Richard Hannon Black Comedy, with Julien Ange in the saddle. Well drawn in stall three and a tasty 8.0
⭕ 2.52 La Teste De Buch Guillemin again with another hidden horse, Penny Yes (BETDAQ 11.0), a winner at the trip. Also set to bounce back is Wink Oliver (also 11.0), one-time AW winner for Jo Hughes in England. The booking of Olivier Peslier catches the eye.
DAQMAN’S BETS
1.07 La Teste De Buch (win 20)
BET 5.75pts win (nap) OFTENWORK
BET 2.85pts win ROSMANA
1.42 La Teste De Buch (win 20)
BET 2.85pts win BLACK COMEDY
BET 1.25pts win HALLOWED SONG
2.52 La Teste De Buch (win 20)
BET 2pts win PENNY YES
BET 2pts win WINK OLIVER
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