DAQMAN NAPS 14-1 WINNER OF THE JOHN SMITH’S CUP IN 50 HIT: Daqman didn’t just pick a 16.0 winner yesterday; he didn’t just land his nap: no, he combined the bets for a 14-1 (SP) bull’s-eye nap in the John Smith’s Cup. It was only the 11th time this year that he has made a win-50 bet his best of the day. Six of them have now won, thanks to Pivoine for a profit of 263 points. Pivoine also pushed Daqman 47-23 ahead of Pricewise. He also landed a place bet and just missed out on another big race when Solar Gold was second and Admiralty third (12-1 from 16.5) in the Bunbury Cup. The last two days:
Saturday
WON 14-1 PIVOINE (nap, John Smith’s Cup, 16.0 on BETDAQ)
3RD 12-1 ADMIRALTY (Bunbury Cup, 16.5 on BETDAQ)
WON (3rd) 7-1 MAXI BOY (place bet)
Friday
WON 10-1 KING’S ADVICE
WON 6-1 ROYAL INTERVENTION (Shades Of Blue 2nd 3-1 same race)
LOOK OUT AT LONGCHAMP! BETDAQ’S KING OF TIPSTERS IS THERE: It’s a big week for the Irish next week, with the Killarney Festival starting tomorrow and the Irish Oaks at the weekend. Meanwhile Daqman goes to Longchamp today with this book of winning bets:
➡️ Daqman 47 Pricewise 22 (330 points clear to 10-unit stake)
➡️ Bull’s-eye naps (6-11) 263 points up to recommended stakes
➡️ Supernaps: 14 out of 19 (118 points up to 20 point stakes)
ONE GROUP 1 AND HE’S WORLD’S BEST
Get out your crystal ball. Now tell me the best horse in training. This horse (and I mean ‘horse’; he’s an entire) beat a filly on the last day, registering his first Group-1 win, a victory suspect because the race was run in mud.
The handicapper had him stuck in the ratings computer on 125 for three consecutive races this season until that result, at which point he grudgingly upped him a couple of pounds.
He is still 2lb below his mark of last autumn when he was beaten in three consecutive races. What’s your verdict? Lucky to grab a Group 1? Wait until the ground is soft again before you back him?
Would you consider this as an answer? Make him the WORLD champion racehorse, turf or dirt, 2lb clear of everything else. Needs a long hard look into that crystal ball, don’t it!
But that’s the state of play in the official world rankings, which has Crystal Ocean (127) on top, well clear of Winx (125 joint second after 35 wins including 25 at Grade 1) and Blue Point (124 after four Group 1). Both are now retired from racing.
Next comes Enable. Despite her convincing return to the track, the rankings ‘experts’ have dropped her 3lb.
Purists will point to Crystal Ocean’s second to Enable last September, beaten three-and-a-half lengths giving her 8lb, and there’s no doubt that Sir Michael Stoute improves them as they get older, year on year, though our handicapper disagrees about Crystal Ocean’s figure.
It’s not the first time the world rankings have come under fire. At the end of 2017, Arrogate was awarded top spot for the year, though beaten in his last three starts.
SURROUNDING IS SO CONSISTENT
3.10 Fairyhouse (Brownstown Stakes) Wokingham runner-up Tis Marvellous boosted the form at Ascot yesterday but the winner, Cape Byron, flopped at Newmarket. He was not a Group horse in a handicap after all.
Perfection, the Wokingham seventh (not clear run) can help clarify the form of the race by taking the Brownstown but faces Surrounding and Indian Blessing – both with higher ratings – and a brace of O’Brien’s.
With form figures of 1123132 at 7f and 1m, top handicaps and Listed, Surrounding seems a professional’s place punt, with three chances of a return and only eight runners.
Perfection swerved York on Friday for this, while six-times Group placed Indian Blessing is of interest on her best form.
Gossamer Wings is the highest rated of the three-year-olds, but she has been a nearly horse since her second in the 2018 Queen Mary.
Hugo Palmer has been badly out of form and Heavenly Holly needs to find more than we see in the book, if she is to win here. I took 3.1 Surrounding.
SHAHNAZA MAY BE A HIDDEN HORSE
6.10 Longchamp Marmelo, last year’s winner of this for Hughie Morrison, returns to bid for the double. ‘We’d love to go to the Melbourne Cup again,’ says Hughie who at last steps Marmelo back up in trip today.
Since his second in the 2018 Melbourne Cup, he’s attempted Group 1 races at a shorter trip but failed to be competitive after winning a Group 3 at Newbury first run back.
It should be a drying good-to-soft ground in Paris today, not dissimilar to that which prevailed at Newbury, and the competition among the older horses is routine: Holdthasisgreen (giving weight) beat Way To Paris in the Spring, with Called To The Bar well back in third.
These three have tended to beat each other in a series of six staying races since Deauville last August when Holdthasisgreen beat Marmelo.
Much of a muchness, then, so we’ll take the stats as a guide: in seven of the last eight seasons, the race has been won by a horse aged four or five; the one winning older horse, a six-year-old, was an outsider.
There’s less than a length between Shahnaza (BETDAQ 9.2) and Ligne d’Or – the two four-year-old fillies – on previous form, and not much indication in their pedigree to suggest latent staying powers.
But Shahnaza’s staying-on sequence of 3332233 might suggest potential for the step up in trip this evening. Well drawn, and stable in form.
JAPAN! BUT CANDLE’S IN THE WIND
6.45 Longchamp (Grand Prix de Paris) Aidan O’Brien followed up Ascot success with Kew Gardens to take this Grand Prix last year and has an arguably stronger Ascot winner, Japan, to do the trick again today.
In fact, Japan could well take the rest of the Kew Gardens route and go for a St Leger in the late summer, though he’s currently scheduled to revert to 1m 2.5f in the International at York.
Versatility in the horse had not been an O’Brien trademark: he usually had a surplus of chances at every level and every distance.
But Kew Gardens dropped back two furlongs from the Queens Vase to win this and then went up again in trip for the Leger.
It will be interesting to see how Derby third Japan copes with the demands upon him. As at Newbury, he’s 10lb clear of everything else in this.
Slalom had Soft Light five lengths behind in the Spring before Jalmood short-headed Soft Light over today’s CD at Longchamp, but Jalmoud has failed twice at Group level since.
With bags of stamina in his pedigree, French Derby fifth Roman Candle should be suited by the step up in trip here and is whispered as the likely danger to Japan: 1 Japan, 2 Roman Candle, 3 Slalom.
MOORE ON TERMS TO LAND TREBLE
7.25 Longchamp Richard Hannon had more runners (24) than most trainers saddle in a week yesterday but winners at Ascot, Newmarket and York, led by the stunning Mystery Power, justified the petrol and 24 buckets of iced water.
If Star Terms steps up in trip here, as has been forecast by racereaders, he could land a Longchamp treble for Ryan Moore. He’s not been my favourite jockey this season but rather Ryan than Gavin Hernon or Georgios Alimpinisis, though he’ll need to be wide awake to Christophe Soumillon on Ebony.
DAQMAN’S BETS
3.10 Fairyhouse (win 20)
BET 10pts win SURROUNDING
6.10 Longchamp (win 20)
BET 2.5pts win SHAHNAZA
6.45 Longchamp (supernap)
BET 20pts win JAPAN
7.25 Longchamp (win 10)
BET 10pts win STAR TERMS
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