ROYAL START: 15-2 WAR WAS 10.5 EXCHANGE: Shrewd staking by Daqman in the value BETDAQ orange meant that most of his Royal Ascot Day One bets were paid for by Declaration of War (WON 15-2 from 10.5) in the very first race.
ROYAL VALUE: STOP THIEF, BET ON BETDAQ: In which of today’s races did the overround reach a 139% SP last year for a near-40% bookies’ take-out? Yet this morning the list in the BETDAQ orange added up to a punter-friendly 103%.
ROYAL CLUE: HUNT FOR THE FILLY IN FOAL: Fillies and mares can improve immensely on the racetrack when they are in foal. Who’s the gal that’s ‘preggers’ in the Royal Hunt Cup today?
ROYAL GAMBIT: QUEEN MOVE TO HIGH NUMBERS: The results by draw on the first day suggest that the winner of the Queen Mary must come from stalls 14 to 24.
A new form-book came out yesterday for Royal Ascot. Pity I didn’t read it in time. It told us that, in this peculiar season, you must look for horses well beaten last time out; ignore English jockeys; and, thirdly, stop backing Ballydoyle’s second string: bet on their third string instead.
That just about sums up the first day, when Irish riders won all six races, Dawn Approach proved in biblical fashion that the last shall be first, and War Command won the Coventry the length of a cricket pitch, bowling the punters for six, in fact.
2.30 Royal Ascot (Jersey Stakes) Like super-flops Declaration Of War, Dawn Approach and Toronado who all redeemed themselves yesterday, we are asked to give another chance to Garswood, though he ‘never traveled’ when seventh to Dawn Approach in the Guineas.
Garswood drops back a furlong and down two grades here, and is second-top rated, a pound behind the Irish Guineas runner-up, Gale Force Ten.
The winner of that Irish Classic, Magician, let the form down yesterday, but two previous Ballydoyle winners of the Jersey Stakes had been second at the Curragh.
Though the colts have recently won four in a row, fillies off 8st 12lb were first and second last year, though only Pearl Sea represents them today.
What does not win this – Strong Suit (2011) was the exception – is a horse with Group penalties. So the top three have a daunting task.
But Listed winners in the pattern get no penalty: Montiridge, Mutin (may need soft and runs too freely), Ninjago (second string) , Parliament Square (needs soft) and The Brothers War (second string).
In fact, eight of the last nine winners had been Group placed or Listed first and second: that takes out Ajraam, Here Comes When, Ian’s Dream, Jammy Guest, One Word More, Pearl Sea and Tamayuz Star.
VERDICT: Six Free Handicap winners like Garswood (7.2 on BETDAQ, as I write) have gone on to win this and Montiridge (6.8) have form lines which has been a good guide, too, with his trainer three times a winner of this race. The French could surprise; we simply don’t know how theirs will cope with the ground.
3.05 Royal Ascot (Duke Of Cambridge Stakes) Incredibly, this race was underround (99%) at 10.30 a.m. this morning if totting up of percentages within the odds offered in the orange. Layers were paying back more than punters put in!
Outright favourites have a lean time of it in this former Windsor Forest Stakes (1-10) and SPs of 10-1, 11-1 (twice) and 14-1 have scored in the last eight seasons.
Winners of a Group race, mostly at Group-3 level, have captured the prize seven times in row, which takes out Intense Pink, Ladys First, Sweetmenessandlight and Thistle Bird, while Dancewiththedevil and Beatrice Aurore are friendless in the market this morning.
Dank turned around last backend’s form with Chigun when they met early last month but Chigun has impressed since at The Curragh.
However, on a line through Ladys First, Duntle comes out on top through his Sandringham win at this royal meeting last season.
VERDICT: Duntle or Dank? Thanks to the massive value in BETDAQ offers, I backed both, at 4.0 and 5.5 respectively.
3.45 Royal Ascot (Prince Of Wales’s Stakes) The race became a Group 1 this century and it’s usually taken a previous Group 1 scorer to win it (11 out of 12).
The score was 7-5 to four-year-olds over five-year-olds until last season when So You Think, a champion in Australia, added this to his Irish Champion Stakes and Sandown Eclipse at the age of six.
Only Camelot (124) in today’s race has the right rating (recent parameters 121 to 125) and only he, Maxios (118), Al Kazeem (117) and The Fugue (116) are Group-1 winners.
Al Kazeem beat Camelot in one of the key races for this, the Tattersalls Gold Cup, also won twice by So You Think, and it’s very much a question of whether Camelot can finally return to his best after major colic surgery against the improving Al Kazeem.
VERDICT: I can’t catch John Gosden right this year (what has gone right for him?) so The Fugue is not for me, and Maxios may need it soft. I believe that – rarely for Ballydoyle – Camelot was beaten in a tactical race by Al Kazeem last time and can now take revenge.
4.25 Royal Ascot (Royal Hunt Cup) Four-year-olds (21 wins) are way ahead since 1980 (five-year-olds 8, and aged six have won only 4).
Nine of the last 10 were officially rated 93 to 102, and seven out of 10 had had just one or two previous races in their Hunt Cup winning season.
Among the few who fit the stats is Frankie Dettori’s mount, Burke’s Rock, who is in foal. This can improve a filly immensely, and she will love the fast-run mile. Misses a Group 2 for this.
Lightly-raced sorts – Educate (may need it soft), David Livingston, Trade Commissioner (may need the run) and Winter’s Night – could be surprise packets. Of these David Livingstone, campaigned over further and in the pattern by Aidan O’Brien, looks dangerous of his current mark for Mike De Kock.
But high numbers, which did well yesterday on the straight course (see Queen Mary), also have the best record in the Hunt Cup, with 24, 25 27 (twice) and 33 (twice) all winning in the decade, and only one single-figure stall successful.
Fury is in last-chance saloon but is blinkered for the first time in stall 22, with Jospeh O’Brien booked, and this is the grey’s time of year.
VERDICT: I’m allowed three chances – David Livingstone (16.0), Burke’s Rock (17.0) and Fury (17.5) – since the BETDAQ list of offers in the orange adds up to a magnificent 103% as I write, compared with the massive 139% Total SP for a near-40% take-out by the bookies last year.
5.00 Royal Ascot (Queen Mary Stakes) Winners at 25-1 and 20-1 (twice) in the last six seasons. You’ve needed to find an unbeaten filly, a Listed winner or a Group-placed.
But the whole race could hinge on the draw – as could the Wokingham and Diamond Jubilee later in the week – with yesterday’s sprint results by stall:
Kings Stand (5f, 19 ran) first, second and third from 14, 5, 10; Coventry (6f, 15 ran) 15, 13, 10; Windsor Castle (5f, 24 ran) 28, 27, 20.
The likely pace of today’s race has the same warning: of the 10 in this Queen Mary that have so far made all, or tried to, seven are drawn 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20 and 21.
Has the prize flown straight to Ballydoyle? Their Bye Bye Birdie is in stall 20, though the race may come all too soon, and is clearly in different conditions, after her win on the soft at Cork on Sunday.
Excel’s Beauty (23), Alutiq (22), and both Fast (19) and Oriel (18) for Richard Hannon, plus Rizeena (16) and Kaiulani (17) all have help from the bias.
But it’s a blow to the favourite, Listed winner Beldale Memory (in 8), Survived (5) and Godolphin’s Fire Blaze (2), while American raider, Sweet Emma Rose, has the ‘coffin box’, stall 1.
Other Listed form suggests Alutiq, second string to Beldale Memory: Alutiq beat Oriel at Newbury further than did Rizeena, but Oriel was badly hampered against her and is the choice of Richard Hughes.
That Newbury race regularly throws up Queen Mary winners. Rizeena’s owner also has Reroute, who is the fastest filly in the race, if her York time can be believed. She’s from stall 11.
VERDICT: I’ll take the Newbury form of high numbers ORIEL (9.6 on BETDAQ as I write) and ALUTIQ (27.0), with REROUTE (10.0) from the middle stalls.
5.35 Royal Ascot (Sandringham Handicap) Only one winner below 8st 11lb in the decade, and only one outside the first six in the betting at the ‘off.’
David Wachman sent out Duntle to win this last year, and Hint Of A TinT is my pinstickers’ pick in this very open race.
DAQMAN’S BETS (all to win 30 points)
BET 5pts win MONTIRIDGE 4.8pts win GARSWOOD (2.30 Royal Ascot)
BET 10pts win DUNTLE and 6.6pts win DANK (3.05 Royal Ascot)
BET 9pts win (nap) CAMELOT (3.45 Royal Ascot)
BET 2pts win DAVID LIVINGSTONE, 1.8pts win on each BURKE’S ROCK and FURY (4.25 Royal ascot)
BET 3.4pts win ORIEL, 3.3pts win REROUTE, 1pt win and place ALUTIQ (5.00 Royal Ascot)
BET 3pts win HINT OF A TINT (5.35 Royal Ascot)
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