FIVE IN A ROW ON BETDAQ CARD: Daqman waved his magic tipping wand yesterday and the layers’ money did a vanishing trick as he landed five consecutive winning bets at Doncaster, starting with yet another successful headline: ‘Magic Start To Eight-Race Betdaq Card.’ Here are his Town Moor five:
WON 3-1 Magic Circle
WON 5-1 Grand Liaison
WON 9-2 Keystroke
WON 11-10 Mustaqeem (nap)
2ND 14-1 George Cinq (place bet)
48 POINTS PROFIT ON THE DAY: A sixth Betdaq-race bet was second, so that his best-return form figures were 111122, and his profit on the day just short of 48 points, despite restricting his bets to basic stakes.
YORK TOMORROW: OAKS PREVIEW: Big-race meetings and Betdaq cards are a happy hunting ground for Daqman the brave, and his value-betting clash with Pricewise of the Racing Post (our man leads 25-5) is back at York tomorrow, with the Oaks-trial Musidora Stakes. His column will be a preview on the Oaks.
TODAY: EIGHT DERBY HORSES LEFT IN THE DANTE: Thursday features the most famous Derby trial of them all, the Dante Stakes, and today Daqman checks out the Derby Story So Far. Eight colts were declared for the Dante this morning.
SUCCESS IN THE DERBY DEPENDS ON THE DANTE
Pieces of eight! We’re baffled by the form so far but Thursday’s Dante Stakes at York, with eight colts declared, is the race most likely to reveal that treasure colt we dream of, streamlined and cutting through the field like a quality yacht.
Derby trials always underwhelm us. Typical corrupted English that word ‘overwhelm’, a tautology, because ‘whelm’ originally meant to turn a boat upside down, so why add the ‘over.’
But it’s very useful for racing form, which gets turned over and over all the time, and the Derby trials usually leave us thinking: ‘Was that it! I wasn’t particularly impressed.’
Sometimes we were right to be underwhelmed, in a year which produces an ordinary Derby winner. Only occasionally now are we overwhelmed, bowled over, by the seamless careers of a Sea The Stars. Is he the last of the greats, as Nijinsky, Troy, Nashwan and Galileo fade in the memory?
The fact remains that the Epsom boat is still sailing and, by Thursday afternoon, you will have seen the Derby winner put his toe in the water this year!
Season after season, the same trials produce the hero of the Blue Riband (oddly enough, originally a sailing prize, so my metaphor still holds water!)
CHESTER: This century’s Epsom winners Kris Kin – won the Dee Stakes – and Ruler Of The World – the Chester Vase – both scored at last week’s Roodeye meeting.
Hans Holbein won the Chester Vase last week but we were underwhelmed by his performance; he looked ordinary in a small field. The Dee Stakes was won by a gelding.
DANTE: Authorized, North Light and Motivator all won the Dante, and Workforce was second in it, before they won the Derby. Look out on Thursday! Eight have been declared.
They are: Elm Park, Golden Horn, Jack Hobbs, John F Kennedy, Lord Ben Stack, Medrano, Nafaqa and Ol’ Man River
So it is that Ballydoyle’s old favourite, John F Kennedy, tries to redeem his reputation against the new favourite, Jack Hobbs (John Gosden), with Kennedy’s stablemate Ol’ Man River in tow.
Gosden, too, is double handed, fielding both Jack Hobbs and Golden Horn, but the one they all have to beat is Racing Post Trophy winner, Elm Park, four in a row and described by Andrew Balding as the best two-year-old he’s ever had.
DERRINSTOWN: High Chaparral, Galileo and Sinndar all won the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial at Leopardstown.
This time around, Ken Condon’s Success Days won the Derrinstown by 10 lengths after bursting the John F Kennedy bubble in the Ballysax.
GUINEAS: Camelot and Sea The Stars won the Newmarket 2,000 Guineas; Australia (third), New Approach and Sir Percy – both second – were all placed in it.
But the Guineas was a sprint this year, and the winner is expected to stick to a mile or 1m 2f, with the placed horses likely to be seen in mile events at Royal Ascot and Goodwood.
VERDICT: We have probably seen a Derby winner this season. This time, we are underwhelmed because he’s not with a top stable; he’s not the next Ballydoyle whizz kid, as Aidan O’Brien bids for a fourth consecutive Epsom win, which would be his sixth in all.
The colt is called Success Days, trained by Ken Condon in County Kildare; he’s a horse with a superb temperament and attitude, who demolished John F Kennedy and destroyed the Derrinstown field.
But, until Thursday’s Dante, when the prime movers in the Epsom Derby market appear, we shall not know whether his Derby is at Epsom or The Curragh.
The soft-ground success looks tailor-made for the Irish Derby, following in the hoofprints of Dylan Thomas and Fame And Glory, who were also Derrinstown winners.
But, if there is a moderate Dante, and/or, if there’s rain forecast for Surrey, connections have little choice but to supplement for Epsom. And we might all be whelmed if it’s not a day of Success.
I’M AMENABLE TO ANOTHER GOOD BETDAQ DAY
Another five? Superstition should have no place in the mind of a racing punter but we’ve all been there. Had the day when all the pieces of the jigsaw slotted together and then ran into a Rubik’s Cube 24 hours later and fell off Cloud 9.
There’s certainly no scientific reason why you can’t have success ‘back to back’, even on the day after the Lord Mayor’s show.. so fingers crossed for today!
There’s little doubt it’s quantity over quality ahead of York and, with seven meetings in the UK and Ireland, all the filters need to be applied to find the best BETDAQ bets of the day. I’ve got it down to five, one from each of the UK venues.
2.55 Beverley Eight races, the first four over 5f. There’s nothing like variation and this is NOTHING like variation.
Despite efforts to even out the draw bias at Beverley it remains one of the most pronounced in the country with LOW numbers favoured. Punters with longer memories will of course remember it was always HIGH numbers.. but the BHA switched the numbering in 2011 on all the right-handed courses.
Followers of my ABC Guide on the big races will know I like to get ticks in the boxes when assessing a heat and the principles still apply on lower-grade races.
Amenable seems to have plenty going for him in the 2.55. He won the same race last year, gets the cut in the ground again, is drawn in pole position of one and his trainer is in good form with four winners from last 17 runners.
But the most important factor is Amenable himself. He arrives here on the back of a superb effort at Thirsk on Saturday when narrowly beaten in the much more competitive Dick Peacock Sprint Handicap. He went off a 25-1 chance that day and was only mowed down in the closing stages but still finished nicely clear of the third. The switch back to the minimum trip (Thirsk was 6f) over a track with a stiff finish looks the perfect answer.
2.15 Sedgefield Sorry, but I can’t be having Black Jack Rover at odds-on in the opener, even as weak as this race looks. The Donald McCain runner has let down punters at short odds on three occasions (from just four starts) including here at Sedgefield last time when a 15-lengths second when seemingly failing to get home over the 2m 4f trip.
So I spat out my morning cornflakes on seeing that he was UP IN TRIP today to 2m 5f 110y. No surprise that he was already quite weak on the BETDAQ market this morning.
Rather than a lay, I’ll go with support of the only credible rival, Lawless Island, who showed promise for Tim Vaughan in three bumpers and is a winner of a point. South Wales > Sedgefield = plenty of diesel and hopefully connections will be rewarded.
5.05 Wincanton Small fields blight the card: trainers are running scared of the words in brackets in the going tag (good to firm in places).
It’s rare I go for a debutant but will consider it when I think I’m getting an edge. I think that might the case with the Emma Lavelle trained Time Is Money in the concluding bumper.
The quintet who have already run look largely devoid of ability and, with the trainer having such a good record in bumpers at the track, it doesn’t take that much of a leap of faith to think this full sister to bumper winner Brassick will prove good enough.
5.20 Southwell The ten-year-old Accessallareas might be capable of defying a penalty for winning at Newton Abbot last week, even allowing for the fact the market leaders underperformed (favourite pulled up) and that the form may not amount to much.
His capable amateur rider takes off 7lb today but the biggest positive is that there are so many holes in the opposition. Liars Poker is second favourite on BETDAQ but has been beaten an aggregate of 96 lengths in his last two completed races and was pulled up in between those!
9.05 Chelmsford The course has had plenty of critics since reopening but fair play to the Essex circuit who see tonight’s card well supported by trainers and providing competitive betting fare to punters.
Sir Mark Prescott’s High Secret is likely to dominate the market for the finale but, with eight runners, the race looks ripe for a cheeky BETDAQ place bet.
The Quarterjack has been staying on in small fields and hopefully his run of ‘seconditis’ might continue here. He was no match for the odds-on Nabatean here last time but the form of that race doesn’t read too badly in the context of tonight’s race.
DAQMAN BETS (staked for strength 1 to 9)
BET 6pts win LAWLESS ISLAND (2.15 Sedgefield)
BET 8pts win (nap) AMENABLE (2.55 Beverley)
BET 5pts win TIME IS MONEY (5.05 Wincanton)
BET 6pts win ACCESSALLAREAS (5.20 Southwell)
BET 1pt win and 5pts place THE QUARTERJACK (9.05 Chelmsford)
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