RACING CANCELLED AS DAQMAN WINS WITH A HORSE CALLED BAN: The 2020 Flat season that dawned in Ireland on Monday turned out to be the twilight of a brave attempt to keep racing going, and it was snuffed out over jumps at Clonmel yesterday. The target for a return is April 19, but that’s no more than hopeful. Daqman was just warming up to the task with two ‘beauties’, the last one appropriately called ‘ban’.

WON 8-1 LEMISTA (Monday)

WON 7-1 COSA BAN (Tuesday)

THE ENGLISH AND IRISH GRAND NATIONALS ARE BOTH NOW LOST: The ban means that the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse, as well as the Aintree Grand National, has been lost, and it comes on the brink of the Curragh’s new season, planned for Saturday, with the Irish Lincolnshire. Everything now hangs on whether racing can resume in time for the start of the Classics in May, or whether the season;s big races will be revised. Watch this space.

STAY WITH US FOR THE SECRETS OF WINNER-FINDING: PART TWO: No racing in England, France or Ireland at least until France on April 15. But you are already sharpening your betting skills and collecting articles by Daqman intended to increase your understanding of each race on a card, how to read between the lines of the form and what to expect as an outcome.

Part 1 YESTERDAY in the Archive: Nearly Horses
Part 3 TOMORROW The Hype

LOOK OUT for more star features from Daqman which will have you way ahead of the crowd: the truth about trainers; how to bet for value; see how they won; racing diary of major memories, and how those races might turn out now PLUS the plots behind the scenes; hidden horses; and the champions to be.

WORLD RACING: During the enforced closure of UK and Irish racing we cast the net further on BETDAQ TIPS with a new WORLD RACING preview. Today with a NAP in the 2.50pm at Happy Valley – covered live on SKY CLICK HERE


FORM IS SIMPLY WHAT YOU BEAT

No bouquets for following ‘nearly horses’. Bridesmaids who place over and over again without winning should be anathema to you. Don’t be tempted to back them and fall into the trap of my opening rhyme in yesterday’s column.

For some bloggers and punters, bridesmaids and horses with ‘seconditis’ are a kind of lure. They feel sorry for them – ‘so unlucky’ – as if they are sure to win one day. They pay for sympathy with their own money.

Bridesmaids: Some such horses do eventually win, sometimes at a decent price, but leave them alone; let them win! In following their losing run, you are actually reducing the odds every time you bet.

Backing horses for profit is all about sequences. If you follow a horse that loses – however narrowly – for five races at the same stake and it then wins at 6-1, you ‘broke even’ at best.

A staking plan could create a profit but are you seriously going to join in such a sequence with increased stakes or ‘steps’?

It’s tempting when Press and bloggers latch on to a horse that keeps doing well without winning.

They hype it with phrases like ‘solid form’, and get excited if it is placed behind a quality animal.

You love this horse. He gives you a yardstick, a benchmark, to collateral form, hidden within the race you are studying.

In himself, he’s a lay; or he’ll make the market for you to back a better horse. Here’s another little verse:

Second to the champion,
So time to plan a coup?
No, it’s what you beat that counts
NOT what beats you..

This is about two checks on this so-called ‘solid form’ which will help to tell you where you stand. Firstly, what is the handicapper doing with this particular horse? If he’s improving, his rating will be going up.

If he continuously keeps the same rating, then the handicapper thinks it’s one paced, marking time, getting nowhere, has no ‘finish’.. yet unkindly, in the view of the trainer, refuses to drop him.

Plateaued: Once recently, I reported in my column that a horse had run 13 races since the start of last year and had the same or similar rating! It’s biggest fluctuation was by a pound.

It was permanently on a plateau, incurring heavy betting losses to his fans. Yet was often among the favourites because he regularly seemed to run well, even go close, maybe improve a little sometimes, so that his chances of being dropped a few pounds were lost!

Second and most important check, which is where my little memory rhyme comes in: what horses were BEHIND him the last day; don’t judge him by the one(s) in front. How did those behind perform BEFORE and AFTER he was in the frame.

I opposed a favourite called Even So (3rd 6-5 on) in Monday’s column. I said:

Impressive maiden winner at Gowran Park, though the 12 behind that day in September have only ONE win of their own to share among them!


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