11-2 WORLD CUP WINNER FOR DAQMAN: Animal Kingdom (WON 11-2) and Soft Rain Falling (WON 9-4) landed a Dubai double for Daqman yesterday. He forecast that runaway winner Animal Kingdom would be ‘the one to make the breakthrough’ for America in the World Cup.
IT’S THE OLD ONE-TWO: A one-two at home in the Cammidge Trophy at Doncaster was also landed with Jack Dexter (WON 15-8) and Captain Ramius (2nd 9-2), but it wasn’t enough to extend the record of six consecutive days in profit. Daqman is now on seven out of nine.
‘POWER’ BID FOR FOUR BANKERS IN A ROW: Today the maestro moves ‘all in’ – his very words – on Annie Power at the opening of the Fairyhouse Irish national meeting. He is bidding for four consecutive winning bankers after 5-4, 1-7 and 1-4 winners in February and March.
2.25 Fairyhouse (Mares Novice-Hurdle Final) A star is born. I’m moving the chips ‘all in’ on Annie Power, who has around a stone in hand of her field.
The horse she beat at Naas had won his two previous starts by a total of 69 lengths and the one she beat at Clonmel has scored twice since. They were no mugs.
2.55 Fairyhouse (Fame And Glory Novice Hurdle) Annie Power’s Naas victim was Defy Logic, easily resisted that day despite all the urgings of A P McCoy.
Defy Logic it was who had scored twice previously, and those successes were both runaway wins on today’s course. Logic says he’ll be hard to beat, stepping out of Annie Power’s shadow.
Defy Logic’s career began when he was the moral, giving 5lb but beaten only a length and a half by Sizing Gold in a Navan bumper.
Here they are together in battle again, with Sizing Gold having beaten another good yardstick, Morning Assembly, before his second to Pont Alexandre, stopping a hat-trick by the third horse home, Our Vinnie.
A line through Our Vinnie suggests that Pride Of the Parish will not pose a threat. But Bright New Dawn is a different matter: he ran a blinder at Leopardstown when getting within less than two lengths of subsequent Supreme Novice Hurdle winner, Champagne Fever and the 5.3 this morning must be taken, despite his conceding 5lb to the others.
All I have quoted is top-class form and serves to hammer home the superstar potential of Annie Power.
3.45 Cork (Easter Hurdle) Local trainer Robert Tyner tries to repel the raiders with his Beneficial mare, Byerley Babe, let in lightly by the handicapper off 116, having split 127 and 126 rated horses at Fairyhouse.
‘Babe’ was unlucky not to beat Born In Fire (122) at Punchestown when, unusually for him, A P McCoy allowed his mount to be shuffled back through the field when missing an opportunity for some daylight in the pack behind Mouse Morris’s Born In Fire.
The handicapper has allowed her only a pound. McCoy is busy at Fairyhouse and Born In Fire will miss Davy Russell (though he’s back in action today) so the return match is without its original participants.
But BETDAQ punters have no doubt that Byerley Babe will reverse the placings, going 3.6 the Babe and 8.8 Born In Fire this morning.
Saliesin has won this race before but is 10 now. So, too, Beneficial Spirit, who is closest to the two principals in the market.
Surely then, if it’s between the youngsters, Born In Fire and Byerley Babe, ‘Fire’ is far too cold in the market at 8.8, with punters betting on pure speculation that the Tyner horse would have won at Punchestown. And why shouldn’t Born In Fire improve again; he’s only five!
3.50 Musselburgh Gold Cup No favourite has ever won this, though Richard Fahey’s well-backed runner was third last year as market leader following the yard’s success in 2011 with High Office.
However, if the many ‘stable tours’ we see in the Press and on line mean anything at all, his two runners this time around, Mica Mika and Cosmic Sun, can be discounted, since they don’t warrant a ‘mench’ in his list on the Sporting Life site.
Of the Racing Post joint-top ratings, only Moidore, from John Quinn’s Lincoln-winning yard, had any momentum in the market this morning.
The two others, upped-in-trip Angel Gabrial and last Saturday’s second, The Bull Hayes, forecast at 5-1 favourite and 9-1 respectively, were both easy to back at 9.4 and 13.5.
Royal Peculiar seemed well fancied but, along with Cosmic Sun and Getabuzz, has a lot to do to reverse backend form with Lady Kashaan, a winner at the trip and on both firm and heavy going.
Solaras Exhibition got a big boost when his half-length Lingfield conqueror, Buckland, won the Rosebery at Kempton Park yesterday.
Moidore didn’t quite make it as a hurdler but his stable and that of Lady Kashaan are both in form and represent the main threat to Solaras Exhbition (7.6 on BETDAQ as I write), if their contenders are at peak on their seasonal debuts.
4.00 Plumpton (Sussex Champion Hurdle) The launch of this Sussex Champion Hurdle has a Cheltenham Champion Hurdle runner, Balder Success, in the field.
Third in the Kingwell trial on the way to the festival, but disappointing at Cheltenham, he has yet to live up to Alan King’s expectations of him and has to give weight all round here.
Ronaldo Des Mottes was another Cheltenham failure in the County Hurdle, as was Act Of Kalanisi in the Martin Pipe contest for conditional jockeys.
Constant Contact’s sixth in that race is probably the best on show from the festival. It was a trip too far for him but he’s an in-between horse, who will need a strong pace today at the minimum.
Court Minstrel has his conditions today and seems to be first time in a handicap off a handy mark, if he can reproduce his form of November at Cheltenham which was on good-to-soft ground.
He had 150, 148 and 140 horses around him when third that day, though he subsequently only scraped together his 131 mark on heavy ground at Sandown.
Softsong let Red Inca’s Haydock form down on the same course yesterday so I’m looking to Stone Light to improve second run in England.
His French form suggests that the minimum trip in England would best suit and he was pitched into the deep end, sunk without trace behind Quevega over 2m 4f at Cheltenham. That has so disguised him that he’s 21.0 on BETDAQ, as I write.
4.30 Fairyhouse (Powers Gold Cup) A small field but a cracking contest, won for four years in a row by novices, with Realt Dubh and Flemenstar the last two winners.
That’s one reason why I can’t see the old hands, enigmatic Mikael D’Haguenet and Realt Mor, taking a hand in the finish.
We know the trip suits Dedigout and Mount Benbulben but both are in-and-out performers, and I find that Oscars Well’s sequences of placed without winning are not bridesmaid’s badges but reminders that he really needs today’s 2m 4f.
After all, the rise and rise of Oscars Well came in 2m 2f and 2m 4f novice hurdles, which would normally suggest a 3m chaser.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BANKER: BET 20 points win (NAP) ANNIE POWER (2.25 Fairyhouse)
BET 9.7pts win DEFY LOGIC and 4.6pts win BRIGHT NEW DAWN (2.55 Fairyhouse)
BET 2.6pts win BORN IN FIRE and 1pt win (stakes saver) BYERLEY BABE (3.45 Cork)
BET 3pts win SOLARAS EXHIBITION (3.50 Musselburgh)
BET 1pt win and place STONE LIGHT and 1pt win (stakes saver) COURT MINSTREL
BET 5pts win OSCARS WELL (4.30 Fairyhouse)
* Daqman’s bets are staked to win 20 points, excepting the banker which is a maximum-stakes, 20-point-win nap.
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