DAQMAN HITS SIX IN TWO DAYS: Twice in two days, Daqman has produced two short shots to win and a long shot to place. Six returns but could have been seven had you done a Ladbrokes forecast, which paid 53-1 if you coupled Alnashama (WON 2-1) and Top Beak (2nd 25-1) at Leicester last night.
Monday trio
WON 9-10 Sweet Sounds (banker)
WON 4-7 Zorion
2nd 16-1 Pretty Bubbles
Tuesday three
WON 2-1 Alnashama
2nd 25-1 Top Beak (forecast)
WON 11-8 May Rose
TON-UP VALUE IN THE BETDAQ ORANGE: On the first day of York, Daqman goes for a ton-up handicap return in a 106% orange this morning, and will be highlighting BETDAQ value in those races all this week. He has two bets in his challenge to the Racing Post, with the scores Daqman 65, Pricewise 28
SPENCER THE LIKELY LAD ON LEXINGTON
1.55 York As ever, we need quality and speed, and a gutsy finisher, for this dash and there’s been only one winner below 9st 4lb in the decade.
Stalls 7, 9, 10 and 11 – Robot Boy, Meadway, Move In Time, Bowson Fred – all contain front-runners, which augur well for the low numbers. But we need one high drawn, too, since stalls 15 (three times) and 18 have scored from the other side of the split.
Arctic Feeling, Duke Of Firenze, Harry Hurricane, Line Of Reason and Union Rose are all course winners, and Line Of Reason (in stall 4) ran a cracker under a bigger weight than today when runner-up at Ascot recently.
The Pricewise selection, Duke Of Firenze, is 9lb higher than for his last success, here at York in the Spring, and has scored (in 2014 at Catterick) in only one other sprint in three years.
Kevin Ryan has plotted this race twice in the last three years – for Blaine and Bogart – and Lexington Abbey (stall 17) has the edge on form (hampered in last quarter mile) from an Ascot race in July containing nine of this field.
Jamie Spencer is riding at his most daring this season and with a supreme judge of come-from-behind pace, so I take Lexington Abbey to win from Line Of Reason and Move In Time, the Group horse of the race.
BETDAQ HANDICAP VALUE: Lexington Abbey at 11.0 and Line of Reason at 14.5
BALLYDOYLE BACKERS NEED COURAGE
2.30 York (Acomb Stakes) Something wrong somewhere. I know Aidan O’Brien (Hemingway) hasn’t won this since the turn of the century – Mark Johnston and William Haggas have taken it twice – but the BETDAQ market this morning gives his runner, Courage Under Fire, an unwarranted thumbs-down at 8.0.
Courage Under Fire represents the flying Caravaggio, in the Phoenix Stakes on the last day. Ok, he went down four lengths but Caravaggio is a Frankel-type sprinter.
And I think that time will reveal that Courage Under Fire also takes high rank as a short-head at Galway off Brutal, who went on to win what seems a high-class maiden at Leopardstown.
At 8.0, he must be facing a superstar! That’s how the betting sees Godolphin’s Best of Days, a striking debutant at Sandown for the burgeoning yard of Hugo Palmer.
But the runner-up that day was beaten before and after the race, and the fourth horse has gone down twice since.
And I can’t have the Mark Johnston colt, Bear Valley. Success at Goodwood and Epsom does not relate to this track at York.
Lockheed should improve for a trainer who takes the race but will have to. Before Majeste dropped out, Courage Under Fire looked a solid win and place at 8.0. I’ll stick with him
IF I’D A FORTUNE I’D PUT IT ON IDAHO
3.05 York (Great Voltigeur Stakes) No winner of this did the St Leger double in the decade but Postponed won it on the way to the King George the following year and today tries to add the International (3.40 race) to his Coronation Cup at Epsom.
Meanwhile, the market suggests that top-line success for Idaho is only postponed, after his places in two Derbys.
Houses Of Parliament was beaten by Across The Stars at Royal Ascot, and Across The Stars was only 10th at Epsom behind Harzand , US Army Ranger and Idaho.
Houses Of Parliament came into his own in a stamina test at Newmarket last month, finally getting the sound surface he needs, only to see that form let down badly at Goodwood by the second and third. They were ‘nowhere’ behind Ulysees and The Major General.
HAWK FITS THE INTERNATIONAL BILL
3.40 York (International) Postponed is up against the stats which say that second and third season animals share the spoils: it’s four-year-olds 5, three-year-olds 4 in the decade.
Five-year-olds have scored just twice in 18 seasons, and all Postponed’s Group 1 and Group 2 wins have been over 1m 4f.
I’m not inspired to join the other old boys’ clubs of long-term bridesmaid The Grey Gatsby or the Pricewise horse, Mutakayyef, whose Ascot Summer Mile was won over a nearly horse, Dutch Connection.
Arab Spring at a huge 36.0 may be best of the older brigade for the horse-whisperer of racing, Sir Michael Stoute, who also saddles Exosphere at 46.0 for the Fortune Cookies.
I made out a case yesterday for it being a year of the three-year-olds. If you look at Derby form again, we find Wings Of Desire just behind Idaho at Epsom but worse off at these weights with Highland Reel, who beat him at Ascot, last month. So it will have to be Hawkbill.
If you look for an improver, a young pretender who could be king, you also have to say Hawkbill. There’s just the doubt about the ground but his form has all the hallmarks (beat The Gurkha on the last day and that one has won the Sussex Stakes since).
DAQMAN’S BETS (stakes as advised)
TON-UP BET (to win 100): BET 10pts win LEXINGTON ABBEY and 7.4pts win LINE OF REASON (1.55 York)
BET (to win 30) 4pts win and place COURAGE UNDER FIRE (2.30 York)
GOLD BANKER: BET 30pts win (nap) IDAHO (3.05 York)
BET (to win 30) 5pts win HAWKBILL, and 1pt win and place ARAB SPRING (3.40 York)
£25 IN FREE BETS
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